Shawn Kelly, India Company, Korengal Valley, December 2004

Sgt. Shawn Kelly, squad leader with I Co., 3rd Bn., 3rd Marines, from Ovido, Fla., speaks to a village elder in Korangal Valley, Afghanistan, about the whereabouts of a man his squad hopes to question. Many Marines and sailors in the battalion have begun to pick up phrases in Pashtu, the language spoken in many parts of Afghanistan. Although not intended to make Marines proficient, Rosetta Stone’s language software, which is now offered on MarineNet, allows the user to get the basics in 31 languages such as Pashtu.