In high demand

"Could you come with me for a second" The Lt. said to me.
"yah sure." I said. I closed my computer and followed the Student Executive officer to his office. For some reason I thought I was in trouble, and scanned my mind as to what he would need to talk to me about.

We turned the corner to his office to reveal a few more Lieutenants sitting around, one typing away at the computer.

"Are you Brian?" he asked.
"Yes." I said
"Are you the one who wants to take the language exam?" he said.
phew, thank god im not in trouble
"Yes, I do."
"Ok, 'cause we didn't get your paper work on if you spoke it or not. There was word that you speak it alright and we want to make sure you take the test. What do you rate on speaking, 1 being the most basic, to 4 being fluent."
"Two" I said
"writing?"
"Two" I said
"Reading?"
"about a one" I said.
"Sweet. OK, so you know that because its Arabic, its considered a level Alpha right?" He started to explain. But i had heard the brief before. Apparently because Arabic was in high demand (for obvious reasons) any basic knowledge of it, even a level 1 experience, was enough to qualify me for an extra 400 dollars a month. But with that, it would flag me in the system and have a heavy influence on what my job would be later down the road.

"Yes, I understand." I said
"OK, we are going to set you up with an appoinment to take the test. Go ahead and talk to your computer representative in the platoon so you can start brushing up on it to take the test." He said
"Thanks, I'll do that." i said
I started to leave the room and stopped.

"Oh um... how many other people in the platoon speak Arabic?" i asked
He looked on the screen.

"To the extend that you are at, you are the only one." He said.
"... wow, ok, thanks." I said.


Guess my talent is literally going to start paying off finally.