Fluent Forces Act

This bill, called the Fluent Forces Act, aims to grow and keep strong language skills in the U.S. military. It says the Defense Department must check, every year, how it recruits students to attend the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC), the military’s main school for foreign language and culture. The findings explain why this matters: language fluency helps troops work with partners, connect with local people, make safer decisions, and support intelligence work and diplomacy. Even with new tech and AI, person-to-person communication is still key for national security.

The bill requires annual reports on which high schools (public and private) recruiters engage, how many students enlist and then enroll at DLIFLC, what recruiting challenges exist, and new ideas to raise awareness of linguist careers in the military and government. It also asks each service branch to plan how they will use these ideas and to set clear benchmarks. For public schools, the data must be broken down by local school district. The first report is due by December 31, 2025, and then every year through 2030.

Key points

• Who is affected: Department of Defense, public and private high schools, students considering military service, and local school districts.
• What changes: Yearly reviews of recruiting for DLIFLC, tracking of school outreach and enrollments, identification of barriers, recommendations for better methods, service-by-service plans, and progress benchmarks; public-school data must be broken down by local district.
• When: Reports due starting December 31, 2025, then yearly through December 31, 2030.