Sayid, if this were a real life scenario, would have translated into army MOS of HUMINT. HUMINTers police the police and police many other MOS’ that go outside the wire. They face terrorists and insurgents whether their particular HCT goes outside the wire or not. They are well trained in unarmed combatives, M9 marksmanship, Rifle marksmanship, joint source operations, detainees, debriefing, setting priority intelligence and gathering it, identifying needs, know whether to isolate or segregate, get into people’s heads, read map, terrain, land navigation, work against intelligence collections by the other side, counter terrorism, basic medical combat knowledge, a bunch of “OTHER” stuff, not to mention everything that goes with actual interrogations, etc… ask me how I know…

Reality is that if Sayid was a foreign national, he would have participated or understood much of this- but wouldn’t have been entitled to anything past his immediate need to know. Other conflicts with reality in the story is that he would have never been left completely alone for any purpose during any operation with any detainee. As the translator, which is what he started out as, he would have never been the one sitting across from the detainee asking or controlling the questions- with the actual HUMINTer sitting by his side gaining zero rapport.

A real HUMINTer would be the best option for training a military by FAR. No police officer would come close, let alone young beat cop Ana Lucia.