DRAPER — For Douglas Bell, 64, a retired chief warrant officer in the Utah National Guard, military training wasn't about push-ups and obstacle courses. He remembers going skiing, hanging out at German restaurants and doing a lot of chatting.
"We had a lot of fun," he says. "You see, it didn't matter what we did as long as we were speaking Dutch."
Bell spent 35 years as a linguist in the 142nd Military Intelligence Battalion, which celebrated its anniversary Saturday. The Department of the Army set up the company in 1960 hoping to attract language-trained returned missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The original 142nd had 90 members who spoke 14 languages among them. Since then, the company has grown so large it had to be divided in two. Those units, together known as the 300th Military Intelligence Brigade, now manage more than 1,600 linguists in eight states.
"What a remarkable thing you've all built here," said Maj. Gen. Brian Tarbet, adjutant general of the Utah National Guard, addressing the 300 former and current members of the 142nd who gathered Saturday at the The Utah National Guard's Draper headquarters. "I bet you didn't see it coming."
Richard Roberts, who served as a colonel in the 142nd in 1960, certainly didn't. He signed up for the intelligence program because, as a French teacher at Highland High School in Salt Lake City, he wanted a way to make some extra cash and do a little traveling. He loved it so much, though, that he got "hooked" into staying 20 years.
Roberts reminisced about practicing interrogation techniques, building a language lab and keeping a careful watch over his men as they studied in the Brigham Young University library.
"I had to make sure they weren't studying for their law exams instead of drilling their languages," he said.
They needed the practice: about 95 percent of the first company were returned LDS missionaries. Their vocabulary was centered more on "faith" and "Jesus Christ" than "tanks" and "artillery," Richards said.
"It was a big switch for us," said Bell, who joined the 142nd in 1964.
Vocabulary aside, however, Bell said speaking Dutch during his military career, which took him to Iraq in 2003, wasn't much different than preaching on a mission.
"In Iraq, I gave people freedom," he said. "On a mission, I gave people freedom of a different kind — spiritual freedom."
e-mail: estuart@desnews.com