Part A:
1) There is no shortage of individuals who want to become linguists.
Part B:
Linguists are better paid (we got an extra $100+ a month per language for being linguists). We had far better living conditions, and were generally treated as mini-officers in many circles, as most of us were highly skilled, educated, and generally quite intelligent.
Humm... those seem in contradiction economically. If there were no shortage, then there would not be "better" anything, most likely. As I was pointing out, those with real Arabic skills are in hot demand, right now. What's more, home-grown is, for the reasons I cited, not nearly the same as those who are in country who have brought with them cultural understandings that go along with any language.
Besides, it's not clear that DIA training is going to help the FBI (let alone with the apparent Islam-deficit on display with don't-know answers to the question, "Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'a?")
