Turning Purple: FAOs in Pursuit of Joint Qualification

By Lieutenant Colonel Michael J. Hill, U.S. Army

(Image: Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff)

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Foreign Area Officers (FAO) Corps is one of the few career fields for which Joint billets are common, almost the norm. While serving in a joint billet is by no means a given, FAOs should seek opportunities to become fully joint qualified during our careers. What I hope to accomplish with this short article is to explain why joint qualification is essential to you as a FAO, how to become joint qualified, and how to avoid potential pitfalls in the process. Keep in mind, however, that Joint Qualification rules change over time. The process to become a Joint Qualified Officer (JQO) changed over five years ago and may change again in the next five or ten years.

The requirement to produce JQOs came about through the 1985 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which, among other goals, aimed to mitigate inter-service rivalries that were detrimental to the U.S. Armed Forces joint mission success. Goldwater-Nichols was born out of the DoD’s failures in 1980’s Operation Eagle Claw and subsequently 1983’s invasion of Grenada.[1] These two joint operations elevated DoD’s poor performance in joint operations to the attention of congress and instigated a series of reforms to clarify leadership roles in the joint environment and those of the Joint Chiefs themselves. Among the identified issues was a near inability of the joint forces to work together in operational environments and a lack of compatibility in methods, standard practices, and modes of communication. The reforms of the Goldwater-Nichols Act led to what today is considered standard practice of joint assignments and joint professional military education. The failures of the 1980s created reforms that would bear fruit in conflicts as early as Operation Desert Storm and into Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Today the Department of Defense boasts a very efficient joint force with most senior officers claiming one or two joint tours in a 30-year career, often with more for General and Flag officers (GO/FO).

In the years since Goldwater-Nichols established the standard for joint qualified officers, the three services have adapted and changed so that joint experience is something we expect in our careers, rather than something to avoid. About 58 percent of U.S. Army FAO billets are on the Joint Duty Assignment List (JDAL) and FAOs across the services are the nation’s first tier strategic officers and the primary point of contact between partner nation militaries and the United States. We are also the face of the DoD to the interagency, having greater exposure than any other career field across the board. With all this, the routineness of our joint environment at Combatant Commands (CCMDs) and on U.S. Embassy country teams can sometimes make us forget that most U.S. Army officers must deliberately choose a joint assignment to check the joint assignment block. Regardless of our experience in the joint environment we are not full joint until our joint experience and training are duly reported to our respective service’s joint branch at the appointed time and Joint Staff approved.

Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 1300.19[2] and (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 1330.05B[3] describe three levels of joint qualification, but I’ll only cover Levels II and III, since there is no designated Level I and Level IV is for GO/FOs and attained upon completion of the Capstone Course. An officer can only obtain JQO levels II and III while the officer is O-4 thru O-6. JQO levels are not rank dependent. However, because of the recency requirement, “officers may need more than 24 total points to qualify for Level III. Officers must be an O-4 (for pay purposes) for at least 1 day while filling a Standard Joint Duty Assignment (S-JDA) in order for their full time in the S-JDA to count towards the 12-month recency requirement.” For example, an officer who begins a 36-month S-JDA as an O-3 and spends at least one day as an O-4 in the same assignment will earn a full joint tour credit. An O-6 can retire as a JQO Level II and an O-4 can, under rare circumstances, qualify for JQO Level III soon after pinning on the gold oak leaf. For an officer to reach JQO Level II status, he or she must complete JPME I and complete either 12 months of joint duty or experience (taking recency into account) or be awarded full joint duty assignment credit. Officers earn JPME I credit by completing the service staff college and other Military Education Level 4 (MEL 4) requirements. An officer may request JQ Level III status after completing 24 months of joint experience and JPME II. [4]

Joint Professional Military Education

Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) is the educational component of JQO progression. Officers earn JPME I credit upon graduation from their service staff school (Command and General Staff College, Air Command and Staff College, College of Naval Command and Staff), which most FAOs complete during the FAO training pipeline. Officers complete JPME II by attending Senior Service College (SSC) at one of the National Defense University (NDU) schools or at their service war college. Officers can also earn JPME II credit at the Joint and Combined Warfighting School (JCWS) at the Joint Forces Staff College. JCWS grants JPME II credit but does not confer SSC credit or require selection for SSC to attend. JCWS is an extremely attractive option for younger officers seeking joint qualification due to its brevity (10 weeks) and lack of requirement for SSC selection. The challenge with JCWS is timing. Slots at JCWS are granted by priority. Officers PCSing to or from a joint assignment have a high priority compared to officers not serving in joint billets. If you are PCSing into or out of a joint assignment, talk to your career manager or assignments officer about JCWS. It is important to note that temporary duty away from a S-JDA counts against your accrued time. For example, if you complete JCWS mid-tour while assigned to an S-JDA and leave the assignment 23 months after arrival, you will not receive full S-JDA credit because your total time in the assignment is only 20.5 months. Rounding up is not allowed.

Timing JCWS before or after an S-JDA draws on a DoDI 1300.19 requirement that greater than 50 percent of JPME II graduates from all NDU colleges must go directly to a JDAL billet upon graduation from JPME II.[5] The CJCS keeps close tabs on JPME II graduates and receives regular reports on where graduates are assigned to ensure this standard is met. If an officer attends Army War College, Navy War College, Air War College, National Defense University, or the Joint Advanced Warfighting School, JPME II is granted upon completion and 100 percent of graduates must PCS into a JDAL position.[6]

Joint Duty

Joint duty credit for FAOs may seem easy to earn but it can be difficult to manage. To get joint duty credit, FAOs should focus on completing S-JDAs rather than accumulating Experience – Joint Duty Assignments (E-JDA). S-JDAs are 12-, 18-, 24-, or 36-month tours in billets listed on the JDAL. 36-month S-JDAs may be curtailed to 24 months and the absolute minimum an officer must spend in a joint assignment to receive full joint experience credit is 22 months. 36-month tours are the only tours from which an officer can leave the position at 22 months without a waiver and still get credit. Officers assigned to the Joint Staff J7 must complete 36 months. Officers are entered into the Joint Duty Assignment Management Information System (JDAMIS) upon arriving to the JDAL position. This process is not automatic and requires deliberate action from the officer’s career manager and the service’s joint officer managers. Officers should follow-up soon after arriving to and departing from an S-JDA assignment to ensure the system reflects their status and they receive credit.

An officer must not assume that his or her billet is on the JDAL. As an example, the SDO/DATT billet will normally be on the JDAL, while assistant attaché billets may not. An assistant attaché whose billet is not on the JDAL can still receive joint credit by applying for E-JDA credit, discussed below. Sister services or interagency personnel serving in the same office or command does not mean that your billet is joint (JDAL), even though it may be for them. For example, two Air Force officers work at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). One receives joint credit (S-JDA) because the position is on the JDAL, the other must apply for credit (E-JDA) at the end of the tour. Army officers serving at WHINSEC do not receive joint credit, because the Army officers’ billets are within their own Military Department (there are some exceptions).[7] Under rare circumstances and dependent on the code of the JDAL position, a Service can nominate an officer to fill the joint billet left vacant by a Sister Service. Using the same example, if the WHINSEC JDAL billet is left vacant by the Air Force, WHINSEC can an Army officer to fill the billet and that Army officer will receive Joint credit while he or she fills the vacancy. Air Force and Army offices must deliberately coordinate such actions to ensure this is managed and credit awarded correctly. It is important to remember that your service will not automatically update JPME completion or update Joint Duty credit without deliberate and timely application from the officer.

E-JDAs are quite different. Officers can accrue joint credit through exercises[8] and deployments. Gaining credit for this time is not difficult but requires deliberate record keeping and documentary evidence of time spent on the experience and that the experience involved joint matters. The officer must fill out a questionnaire for each experience/exercise to demonstrate the joint nature of the work. These experiences must have a minimum 30-day duration to be counted for joint experience. Qualifying for JQO Level II requires a total of 12 points. An officer may count a maximum of 6 discretionary points derived from joint exercises or joint courses.[9] There is no limit to the number of experience-based points an officer can count. For Level III, an officer must have the 12 points derived from Level II, along with an additional 12 points from experience.[10]

For the Joint Staff to approve an E-JDA Joint Qualification System (JQS) packet, the officer must show how their experience relates to joint matters and involves “the development or achievement of strategic objectives through the synchronization, coordination and organization of integrated forces in operations conducted across domains such as land, sea, or air, in space, or the information environment.”[11] This can include national military strategy, operations under a unified command, strategic and contingency planning, national security planning, and combined operations with military forces of allied nations. The officer must clearly demonstrate through the joint experience application that the experience involved joint matters at a strategic level. The Joint E-JDA Review Board disapproves many packets each year because the applicant does not make this clear.

A common pitfall when requesting E-JDA credit is failing to apply for joint credit within 12 months of completing the joint experience, exercise, or course. This is a rule for which there is no waiver. To receive credit, the officer uploads supporting documents on the Portal. The Joint Officer Management (JOM) Branch at the service member’s human resources command reviews the key supporting documents to determine eligibility for joint credit and batches the officer’s JQS packet in the system for the E-JDA Review Board. The table below lists documents an officer must submit for E-JDA credit. For an explanation of Intensity Factor (IF) 1 vs. IF2 see the first paragraph in the “Loopholes” section.

Loopholes

DoDI 1300.19 describes certain conditions that can help you receive joint credit faster or more efficiently. Serving in an area designated by DoD 7000.14-R as receiving Hostile Fire/Imminent Danger (HF/ID) pay allows an intensity factor of “2” (IF2).[12] For example, serving 12 months in a location designated IF2 will count as 24 months of joint credit and complete that officer’s requirement. It is important to note that time spent away from the IDP location will count as IF1. Officers must provide supporting documentation (all LES showing IDP) within 12 months of departing the S-JDA to their JOM Branch in order to gain IF2 differential credit. Serving back-to-back assignments without a break can also help accrue joint time. For example, serving 12 months in a S-JDA followed by 12 months in another S-JDA will count as a total 24 months of credit. On the contrary, serving 12 months as an O-4 in a Security Cooperation Office, followed by the Joint Military Attaché School (JMAS), then a 12-month assignment to a DAO will count as two joint assignments and must be counted and applied for separately. For complex situations like this the officer must communicate with his or her service specific JOM Branch JDAL managers to ensure the branch records the assignments and grants credit correctly. Additionally, officers who serve unaccompanied tours of less than 24 months receive accrued full JDA credit without a tour length waiver.[13]

To illustrate, suppose an officer completes JMAS, then takes an assignment at DAO Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistan appears on Table 10-1 of DoD 7000.14-R making it an IF2 post.[14] After 12 months on station, the officer leaves. Once the officer receives the evaluation from DAO Islamabad, he or she submits the evaluation (proof of 12 months) and 12 months of LES (indicating that the officer received HF/ID while on station) to his or her service-specific Joint Officer Management Branch and along with any other supporting documentation. This officer receives full joint credit. 12 months under IF2 conditions multiplies to 24 months of joint credit.

Why JQO Status Matters to You

An officer who completes JPME I and II, fulfills JDA credit requirements, and reports completion to his or her service’s joint officer management office is then nominated for Joint Qualification Level III (JQO). Upon approval by the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R), the CJCS then designates the officer as a JQO. Why does it matter to you as an officer? There are three specific ways JQO status can benefit you and your career.

There are certain critical S-JDA assignments that are specifically designated for Level III JQOs. These assignments may be at the Joint Staff, OSD, CCMD or other commands. DoDI 1300.19 requires officers who complete JPME II at NDU to be assigned to a S-JDA immediately after completing JPME II.[15] As a full-fledged JQO, you may receive preferential treatment in getting the assignment.

JQO Level III is a requirement for promotion to O7. The few FAO unicorns for whom this is a consideration should deliberately manage their joint qualification to not miss this critical requirement. While JQO Level III is not a requirement for promotion to O-5 or O-6, being a JQO can increase your chances for promotion under certain circumstances. Goldwater-Nichols was written to ensure that the Joint Staff received the services’ highest quality officers. 10 U.S.C. §615 requires that promotion boards consider the performance of officers who are serving on, or have served on, the Joint Staff or are Joint Qualified Officers.[16] §662 further states that JQOs “are expected, as a group, to be promoted to the next higher grade at a rate not less than the rate for officers of the same armed force in the same grade and competitive category.”[17] JQO status gives you special consideration at the promotion board. This may, as some report, help you get promoted below the zone when the year group ahead needs additional JQOs to meet this requirement. It may also help you overcome an otherwise lackluster 2/5 MQ ratio to ensure your year group meets the same requirement. Level III JQOs are given special consideration at promotion selection boards as directed by U.S. law. JQO status does not guarantee your promotion any more than a statistically positive ratio of good to average evaluations, but it might just be the boon that pushes you over the hump and into the “promote” box.

JQO status opens more doors for O-5s and O-6s selected for SSC. As discussed above, most officers will receive JPME II credit while completing SSC at either a service specific college (by completing special coursework to that end) or by attending one of the National Defense University colleges. Completing JCWS opens the doors for FAOs to pursue broadening options for SSC completion. This includes academic fellowships at Harvard Kennedy School, University of Texas at Austin, and Stanford among 47 offerings. It also makes you available for School of Other Nations opportunities (9 offerings for 2024-2025).[18] JPME II is also a requirement for the OSD Fellowship which provides officers a 10-month internship at a leading civilian company, including Google, Amazon, and Intel, among others. Fellowship programs give officers the opportunity to further study their region and strategic problems in depth at civilian academic and commercial institutions. Fellowships are generally not degree awarding.

Conclusion

Serving in a joint billet can be career enhancing. FAO billets at COCOMs and Country Teams are often the most sought-after billets because they put us in the arena. FAOs in these billets have truly strategic impacts and are the first line in developing the policies that shape DoD’s relationship with foreign partners. Joint billets help us to become the type of officer that Goldwater-Nichols envisioned would support the DoD’s mission to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure the nation’s security. As a successful FAO, you will get there.[19] You might as well be getting credit for what you do along the way. As administrations and leadership change, so too will the policies that govern joint qualifications processes. Officers should reach out their career manager and their service’s JOM Branch for the most up-to-date information on policies and procedures for earning and getting credit for joint experience and service. To follow up on your joint qualification status or to request credit for your joint experiences, visit the Officer Joint Experience Portal.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank LTC Lianna Scharff and Ms. Marie Dyer of the U.S. Army Human Resources Command, Joint Officer Management Branch for their assistance in the research.

About the Author

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Hill currently serves as an instructor at the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation at Fort Moore, GA. Formerly an Aviation officer, he is now a Latin America FAO. As a FAO, he has held assignments at the Office of Defense Coordination in Mexico City, Mexico, DAO N’Djamena, Chad and as an Assistant Professor of Portuguese at the USMA Department of Foreign Languages. He completed his master’s at the University of Miami and speaks Portuguese, Spanish, and French.

END NOTES

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[1] Hamre, John J.,

“Reflections: Looking Back oat the Need for Goldwater-Nichols.” January 27, 2016. Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/reflections-looking-back-need-goldwater-nichols

[2] DoDI 1300.19 3.2, “DOD Joint Officer Management Program.” May 18, 2023

[3] CJCSI 1330.05B Enclsoure B.2 “Joint Officer Management Program Procedures.” June 6, 2020.

[4] For more information on JPME II offerings, visit the websites of the Joint Forces Staff College website and the National Defense University.

[5] DoDI 1300.19 6.4.f, “DOD Joint Officer Management Program.” May 18, 2023.

[6] For more on Professional Military Education Policy, see CJCSI 1800.01-F, 15 May 2020.

[7] DoDI 1300.19 4.5.e.4, “DOD Joint Officer Management Program.” May 18, 2023

[8] Exercises must be on the approved Joint Exercise List first and are sent thru the S1 in an excel file of officers that participated. Exercises tend to be less than 30 days.

[9] CJCSI 1330.05B Enclosure L.1.b “Joint Officer Management Program Procedures.” June 6, 2020.

[10] DoDI 1300.19 3.2, “DOD Joint Officer Management Program.” May 18, 2023.

[11] Title 10 U.S. Code § 668 – Definitions https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/668

[12] DoD 7000.14-R “Financial Management Regulation.” Volume 7A, Chapter 10, Table 10-1 “IDP Areas.” https://comptroller.defense.gov/portals/45/documents/fmr/current/07a/07a_10.pdf. You may also consult https://www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/Pay-Tables/IDP-Areas/.

[13] DoDI 1300.19 7.2.d, “DOD Joint Officer Management Program.” May 18, 2023. https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/130019p.pdf.

[14] DoDI 7000.14-R Table 10-1 “Department of Defense Financial Management Regulation (DoD FMR).

[15] DoDI 1300.19 6.4.f, “DOD Joint Officer Management Program.” May 18, 2023

[16] Title 10 U.S. Code §615.c Information furnished to selection boards https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/615

[17] Title 10 U.S. Code §662.2 Promotion policy objectives for joint officers https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/662.

[18] Senior Service College/Fellowship/Foreign School Catalog AY 2024-2025

[19]CJCSI 1800.01F, but by January a new one will publish, and it will be CJCSI 1800.01G

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