Carolina Asia Center trains Fort Liberty soldiers

The Carolina Asia Center has been providing training and education opportunities for soldiers from Fort Liberty, one of the world’s largest military bases, located in eastern North Carolina, to better understand Asia.

The center’s relationship with Fort Liberty goes back for several years, including training opportunities offered in 2022 to civil affairs units engaging with Asia. In 2023, this work broadened to include training for language students at Fort Liberty, lectures on the base in Cumberland County and more visits from soldiers to the UNC campus. Additionally, the center is underwriting classes that are helping military staff enrolled as students at UNC to prepare for their work in national security after graduation.

The center has also worked with soldiers who are from the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, are members of special operations forces and are learning the Indonesian language. Last June, several of these soldiers and their language instructors came to Chapel Hill to play on the Indonesian gamelan and angklung instruments. They also practiced speaking the language with Indonesian UNC graduate students and heard a lecture from one of Carolina’s experts about religion in the country.

Center associate director Kevin Fogg traveled to Fort Liberty last July and lectured on Indonesian regionalism to soldiers enrolled in the language program and lectured on Chinese policy towards Muslims for a civil affairs unit training on Asia.

Read a longer version of this story by the Carolina Asia Center.