MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- Culture-packed, pocket-sized and free to the public, Air University’s Air Force Culture and Language Center adds El Salvador, Belize and Guatemala to its inventory of Expeditionary Culture Field Guides.
A staple in field readiness and training for the military since 2009, the field guides are based on the Air Force’s growing requirement. The guides take the traditional military field guides and adds country specific culture and language tips.
“We reach out to the different Air Components and develop our field guides based on their requests and needs,” said Mary Newbern, AFCLC’s manager of guide distribution. “From year-to-year those needs change, and we change accordingly.”
Along with the pocket-sized books, AFCLC has developed an app for the guides that is free to anyone with an iPhone or Android smartphone. To date, more than 10,000 service members have downloaded the app. The Wall Street Journal recently described the app as a “must have” for travelers.
“It was designed to work without Wi-Fi,” said Howard Ward, AFCLC director. “Just search ‘AFCLC’ in the app store and it will download the field guides to your phone. They are uniquely tailored to bring any military branch’s men and women into culture while they are immersed in it.”
The guides now cover 27 African, nine Pacific, six European, three Middle East and four South American locations, with more countries in the queue. Users can select what field guides they want to download and save them to their phones.
To request hardcopy versions of the guides, DoD members can email AFCLC at afclc.region@us.af.mil.