People think of linguists as merely translators a lot of the times, but there's so many other things that we're capable of. When you roll into a town with a unit, they'll have their regular civilian interpreter and they'll go up talk with the village elder's house and the platoon leader starts talking to them.

This one time, I'm just sitting there sitting back, standing guard, and all the locals are talking not knowing that anybody understands what they are saying but we're there, we've got our ears open, we're pulling in every single thing they're saying.

[Translated dialog]
Do you think the Soldiers know about our shop?
Don't talk about that here.
They don't speak our language.
[End Translated dialog]
So I went and pulled my commander aside and let him know what I had overheard. And we discovered this spider hole hidden underneath a couch. And they have just loads of weapons and maps and bomb making material and surveillance footage.

[Dialog]
Let's check one of these tapes out.
What are they talking about?
They're counting numbers coming in and out.
That's our platoon right there.
Yeah, that's our base.
These are our routes right here we're taking.
[End Dialog]
And because of this information we're able to track down these guys that were watching our movements and take out the entire cell.