The Strategic Importance of Joint Qualification

By U.S. Army Lt. Col. Drew Lanier, Joint Policy Branch Chief, Officer Personnel Management Directorate, U.S. Army Human Resources Command

The Army Chief of Staff charged the force to acquire and retain a diverse, well-trained, and highly-skilled workforce led by great leaders. This task requires us to identify and groom future key leaders for our formations with the requisite skills and experience necessary for success on our next battlefield. We must leverage the talents of our future commanders and key leaders, and strategically assign them to capitalize on their strengths. The desired end state is an officer corps with experience in diverse responsibilities and expertise prepared to meet future requirements. ?

The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 reorganized the Department of Defense (DoD) and created an organization more focused on joint matters and effective cooperation between the service branches. The law, among other things, solidified the requirement that all general or flag officers be fully joint qualified before their confirmation as an O-7, and it created and mandated Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) for active component officers.

Joint assignments enable officers to experience operations and planning related to achieving unified action by integrated military forces across domains such as land, sea, air, space, and the information environment. Joint experience is critical to the development of future Army leaders and assignment opportunities directly support one or more of the following:

·???????The national military strategy

·???????Strategic and contingency planning

·???????Command and control of operations under unified command

·???????National security planning with other departments and agencies of the United States

·???????Combined operations with military forces of allied nations.?

Joint assignments are one of the few opportunities where Army officers are fully integrated with the other services and execute joint coordination, planning, and operations. Joint experience further develops senior leaders to understanding and incorporation of the DoD’s strategic objectives across Army formations, and is a critical component in developing Army senior leaders’ long-term strategic skills.

The Army Chief of Staff encourages all high-performing field grade officers to obtain joint qualification as early as possible in their career but certainly no later than their assumption of colonel-level Centralized Selection List (CSL) assignment. Obtaining joint qualification before brigade-level command better prepares our colonels with the requisite skills and experiences to lead their formations and meets the joint qualification requirement if they show potential for the general officer ranks.?

The standard and most common path for officers to gain joint qualification is to complete a satisfactory tour in a Standard Joint Duty Assignment (S-JDA), commonly known as a billet on the Joint Duty Assignment List (JDAL). Nearly 90% of Army officers who become Joint Qualified Officers (JQO) gain their joint qualification by serving at least 24 months in a valid S-JDA position. S-JDA positions can vary from 12-36 month tours, and S-JDA positions are available both CONUS and OCONUS. Officers serving in an S-JDA billet who will not accrue at least 24 months in the position are strongly discouraged from curtailing their assignment. If an officer departs before 24 months in an S-JDA, most curtailments will require a joint tour length waiver signed by the officer’s first GO/FO/SES and will require Office of the Secretary of Defense approval. Curtailment waivers can be approved to allow an officer to depart early and retain their accrued credit, or depart early with no credit.

Officers selected to serve in S-JDAs are high-performing field grades who exhibit potential to serve in selective assignments – including battalion and brigade command – and, later, as an Army senior leader. S-JDA opportunities are available in every Assignment Interactive Module 2 (AIM2) market and, generally, are open to most career fields for majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels. Each summer cycle usually has around 700 validated S-JDA positions, many are hard-coded for specific branches to fill, but approximately 17% are branch immaterial (01A/02A) positions. Unit J1s and HR managers have the ability to preference specific branches in AIM2 for the immaterial positions based on the skills and requirements desired by the joint organization. If preferenced correctly, each validated S-JDA opportunity will have a better chance of being filled with an officer of the desired branch during each AIM2 market.

If you are interested in joint assignment opportunities, we invite you to contact your respective career manager to see what assignments are available and if they may fit within your career timeline. The U.S. Army Human Resources Command Joint Policy Branch website has multiple resources posted for officers’ and units’ reference and can be accessed at: https://www.hrc.army.mil/content/Joint%20Policy%20Branch (CAC/DS Login Required).

Officers who are competitive for Senior Service College (SSC) have the opportunity to gain JPME II qualification by attending a qualifying SSC program. JPME II is awarded upon successful completion of the Army, Naval, Marine, and Air War Colleges or one of the National Defense University (NDU) colleges, which includes the College of Information and Cyberspace, College of International Security Affairs, National War College, Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, and Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS). An essential consideration for officers attending an NDU SSC program is the required JDAL utilization tour upon graduation.

Fifty percent plus one of each NDU college’s Army attendees must be assigned to an S-JDA immediately after graduation. For example, if there are 26 Army officers in the National War College, 14 of them must go into an S-JDA after graduation. JAWS graduates fill senior planner S-JDA positions identified by Combatant Commands (COCOM), Joint Staff, or the Joint Enabling Capabilities Command (JECC), and these positions must remain encumbered by JAWS graduates. ?

SSC Fellowships are not JPME II qualifying programs. Officers who are competitive for Colonel CSL assignments may not have 24 months between their NDU graduation and the CSL start date, so officers need to carefully consider their SSC preferences depending on their joint qualification status, career timeline, and desire to compete for Colonel CSL. Officers can also gain JMPE II qualification by attending the Joint and Combined Warfighting School (JCWS), a 10-week program in Norfolk, Virginia, but slots are limited and are allocated to select officers serving in or en route to a critical (3L qualified officer fill) S-JDA. Officers interested in JCWS should contact their career manager for consideration.

Officers who believe they served in a joint capacity but not in an S-JDA (or JDAL) position can apply for joint credit via the Experience-based Joint Duty Assignment (E-JDA) process. Officers must submit the required documentation?within one year?of completing that duty through the Joint Qualification System (JQS) self-nomination milConnect website located at: https://milconnect.dmdc.osd.mil/milconnect/.

E-JDA boards convene three times per year, typically in February, June, and September. Each board reviews submitted experiences to determine if it meets the standard for ‘Joint Matters.’ Another reference for the E-JDA process is the ‘How to Navigate the Joint Qualification System and Gain Joint Credit via the Experience-Based Joint Duty Assignment Board’ article on LinkedIn. The article can be found at: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-navigate-joint-qualification-system-?trk=public_post-content_share-article.

Lt. Col. Drew Lanier is a senior human resources officer who currently serves as the Joint Policy Branch Chief, Officer Personnel Management Directorate, U.S. Army Human Resources Command. He previously served as the Human Resources Command secretary of the General Staff, United States Military Academy deputy G1, and 101st Airborne Division Sustainment brigade S1. He is a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, Adjutant General Captains Career Course, Field Artillery Basic Officer Leaders Course, and he holds a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy, and a Master’s in Leadership and Management from Webster University. In June 2022, he will assume command of the 369th Adjutant General Battalion at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.