[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 111-89]
INVESTING IN OUR MILITARY LEADERS:
THE ROLE OF PROFESSIONAL MILITARY
EDUCATION IN OFFICER DEVELOPMENT
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JULY 28, 2009
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OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina ROB WITTMAN, Virginia
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
JIM COOPER, Tennessee TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
GLENN NYE, Virginia DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
Suzanne McKenna, Professional Staff Member
Thomas Hawley, Professional Staff Member
Trey Howard, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2009
Page
Hearing:
Tuesday, July 28, 2009, Investing in Our Military Leaders: The
Role of Professional Military Education in Officer Development. 1
Appendix:
Tuesday, July 28, 2009........................................... 31
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TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2009
INVESTING IN OUR MILITARY LEADERS: THE ROLE OF PROFESSIONAL MILITARY
EDUCATION IN OFFICER DEVELOPMENT
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Chairman,
Committee on Armed Services.................................... 2
Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman,
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee...................... 1
Wittman, Hon. Rob, a Representative from Virginia, Ranking
Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.............. 2
WITNESSES
Caldwell, Lt. Gen. William B., IV, USA, Commanding General,
Combined Arms Center, Deputy Commanding General, Training and
Doctrine Command, U.S. Army.................................... 5
Lutterloh, Scott, Director, Total Force Requirements Division,
U.S. Navy...................................................... 9
Paxton, Lt. Gen. John M., Jr., USMC, Director of Operations,
Joint Staff.................................................... 3
Sitterly, Daniel R., Director of Force Development, Deputy Chief
of Staff, Manpower and Personnel, U.S. Air Force............... 7
Spiese, Maj. Gen. Melvin G., USMC, Commanding General, Training
and Education Command, U.S. Marine Corps....................... 10
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Caldwell, Lt. Gen. William B., IV............................ 49
Lutterloh, Scott............................................. 84
Paxton, Lt. Gen. John M., Jr................................. 39
Sitterly, Daniel R........................................... 78
Snyder, Hon. Vic............................................. 35
Spiese, Maj. Gen. Melvin G................................... 96
Wittman, Hon. Rob............................................ 37
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Dr. Snyder................................................... 117
INVESTING IN OUR MILITARY LEADERS: THE ROLE OF PROFESSIONAL MILITARY
EDUCATION IN OFFICER DEVELOPMENT
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, July 28, 2009.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:04 p.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vic Snyder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Dr. Snyder. If you all could please sit on down.
The hearing will come to order. Welcome to the fifth in a
series on hearings on ``Officer in Residence Professional
Military Education (PME).''
Our hearings, thus far, have examined the mission,
curricula and rigor, quality of staff, faculty and students and
resources of service and joint institutions from the pre-
commissioning and primary levels through to the intermediate
and senior PME levels.
Today's hearing will have a broader focus and explore the
role of professional military education in overall officer
development. PME's main purpose is to contribute to the
preparation of our military officers as they progress through
their careers for leadership at the tactical, operational and
strategic levels.
Our ability to systematically produce exceptional leaders
is a result of a very complex system of systems, made all the
more challenging by the demands of today's operational
environment.
The general model used for developing our military leaders
consists of a combination of professional military education,
training, and experience, along with mentoring and self-
development. The process of leader development, of which PME is
a major part, is designed to produce an officer corps made of
skilled joint war fighters who are strategically minded,
critical thinkers according to the vision of joint officer
development.
To achieve that goal, the services need policies and
systems to manage and integrate officers' assignments,
education, and training. It is a complicated task involving
several kinds of inputs. I am sorry. Leader development
strategies, visions, PME policies, and assignment policies and
processes.
The services and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
must identify the attributes they seek in their respective
service and joint leaders. They must deliver education and
training at the right time and at the level appropriate in an
officer's career. And they must manage assignments to broaden
officers' experiences and apply their knowledge and training.
The witnesses for this hearing today have varied
responsibilities and authorities in three areas of PME policy,
officer assignment policy, and leader development. This is a
reflection of the different approaches each organization takes
in connecting these things.
I look forward to gaining a better understanding of how
well we are doing with this challenging and intricate, but
critically important task.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the
Appendix on page 35.]
Mr. Wittman will be joining us shortly. He asked us to go
ahead and begin. Mr. Skelton, any comments to begin with?
STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI,
CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The Chairman. Thank you very much. I compliment you on this
excellent job that you are doing in the field of professional
military education and those of us that have been interested in
it for a good number of years, appreciate your efforts, Dr.
Snyder, very, very much.
The whole effort is to educate and identify that golden
person that may be in a position to make recommendations or
make decisions that lead to positive strategic results. I think
an interesting discussion, I think I may have mentioned this to
General Caldwell, at one time, that General Peter Pace, not too
long before he retired, asked me about the graduates of the
National War College, how many could actually sit down and have
an intelligent conversation with the late George C. Marshall.
And he said three or four. But that is not bad. That is really
pretty good if you are producing the strategic trends.
Now everyone in the class can understand strategy. But
those that are actually on the cutting edge and make sound
recommendations or solid decisions that lead to whatever the
end-state is good for a nation, come to pass, those are the
golden students that you, hopefully, will be educating. And
then, of course, identifying them and then making sure they
have the right follow-on assignments. That is your challenge.
And I compliment you for your efforts and I wish you well in
your endeavors.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we are joined by
Mr. Wittman.
So I take back all his apologies for not being here. Go
ahead, Mr. Wittman.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROB WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA,
RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Snyder,
Chairman Skelton, thank you so much for your leadership on
bringing these issues to the forefront and members of the
panel, thank you so much for taking your time out of your busy
schedules to join us today.
This afternoon, or this morning, well, actually, this
afternoon. Time all runs together up here. So time is relative,
as they say.
The subcommittee is conducting its fifth hearing on officer
in residence professional military education. And this hearing
focuses on how the joint PME (JPME) education requirements fit
into overall leadership development for the military services
and how well the individual services capitalize on the skills
of joint educated officers through carefully managed follow-on
assignments.
I note that our witnesses, each well qualified, come from
varied communities within their services, reflecting the
differences in approach and emphasis we have seen throughout
this study. And since the panel collectively provides the
subcommittee senior expertise and perspective on joint officer
education policy, education programs, assignments and
requirement matters, I welcome your views on the overall
effectiveness of the joint PME system and how well it serves
your respective organizations.
I see no point in making all services adopt the same
approach. We should ensure that the broad officer education and
training system achieves its intended objectives, both to
educate officers in joint matters and to meet specific military
service leader development requirements as well.
Our testimony to this point is positive, but your frank
assessment of any necessary changes is very welcome.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the
Appendix on page 37.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Wittman, and thanks for all your
efforts on this topic and others.
Today, the witnesses are Lieutenant General John Paxton,
Director, Operations for the Joint Staff; Lieutenant General
William Caldwell, IV, Commanding General, Combined Arms Center,
Deputy Commanding General of Training and Doctrine Command in
the U.S. Army; Mr. Dan Sitterly, Director of Force Development;
Deputy Chief of Staff Manpower and Personnel, U.S. Air Force;
Mr. Scott Lutterloh; Director of Total Force Training and
Education Division of the U.S. Navy and Brigadier General
Melvin Spiese, Commanding General, Training and Education
Command, U.S. Marine Corps.
Your written statements will be made a part of the record.
I am going to have John put the light on. When the red light
goes off, that is the end of five minutes. You all feel free to
keep talking if you think you have more to tell us. But we want
to give you an idea of where you are at with time.
And we will begin with you, General Paxton, and go down the
row.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. JOHN M. PAXTON, JR., USMC, DIRECTOR OF
OPERATIONS, JOINT STAFF
General Paxton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Wittman and
Chairman Skelton. Thank you very much for taking your time to
be with us, sir, and for all of you who have contributed over
the years to PME and officer development.
It is a privilege to be with you today, and I thank you for
the opportunity to discuss the Chairman's vision for joint
officer development. As I begin, I would just like to be clear
about my primary role today as the director of operations, I am
filling in for the acting director of the Joint Staff.
U.S. military power, today, is unsurpassed on the land, in
the sea, and in the air, as well as in space and cyberspace.
Our ability to integrate diverse capabilities into a joint
whole that is greater than the sum of the service and agency
parts is an undeniable North American strategic advantage.
However, I believe that it is our people who are ultimately
our greatest strength and our advantage. We repose special
trust and confidence in their patriotism, valor, fidelity, and
abilities. We recognize that these attributes are formed first
by their families and communities, but they are then honed by
purposeful development while in our service. Our stewardship of
these precious assets is both a sacred trust and a solemn
responsibility.
The landmark 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense
Reorganization Act set the stage for the Department of Defense
and put it on the path, which leads us to today's joint force
and our approach to joint leader development.
In 2005, Chairman Pace published his vision for joint
officer development. This vision subsequently informed the
division's strategic plan for joint officer management as well
as JPME.
Congress saw fit to support the vision in legislation and
the transition to our joint qualified officer, our JQO, vice
the previous joint specialty officer, recognizes the broad
application of jointness across the Armed Forces.
Chairman Mullen actively supports this vision and is a
staunch believer that in order to succeed, the Armed Forces
must fundamentally be a learning organization in both word and
deed. Inside the context of joint officer development, our
approach can best be summed up as the right education for the
right officer at the right time. Very similar to what you said,
Chairman Skelton, just a moment ago.
Professional military education, both service and joint, is
a critical element in our officer development, and it is the
foundation of our learning continuum that ensures our Armed
Forces are intrinsically learning organizations. Our young
officers join and are largely trained and developed in their
particular service. Over time, however, they receive training
and education in the joint context. They will gain experience,
pursue self-development and over the breadth of their careers,
become the senior armed--senior leaders of our joint force.
Our developmental efforts must ensure that those officers
are properly prepared for their leadership roles at every level
of activity and employment. And it is through this that the
Armed Forces remain capable of defeating both today's and
tomorrow's threats.
Our future joint force requires knowledgeable, empowered,
innovative, and decisive leaders capable of succeeding in at
least a fluid and perhaps ultimately a chaotic operating
environment with a much more comprehensive knowledge of
interagency and multi-national cultures and capabilities.
Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today to
discuss this vital responsibility for the joint officer
development joint professional military education.
[The prepared statement of General Paxton can be found in
the Appendix on page 39.]
Dr. Snyder. General Caldwell.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. WILLIAM B. CALDWELL, IV, USA, COMMANDING
GENERAL, COMBINED ARMS CENTER, DEPUTY COMMANDING GENERAL,
TRAINING AND DOCTRINE COMMAND, U.S. ARMY
General Caldwell. Chairman Skelton, sir, Chairman Snyder
and Congressman Wittman, and just I am, obviously, Lieutenant
General Bill Caldwell, Commanding General of the Combined Arms
Center and I also serve as the commandant of the Army's Command
and General Staff College. On behalf of General Casey, our Army
Chief of Staff, and General Marty Dempsey, the commanding
general of Training and Doctrine Command, we appreciate the
opportunity to speak with you today about our Army's
professional military education.
As we all know, 20 years ago, the Skelton Report enabled
the Army to focus its professional military education programs
to account for the joint environment. Then, as now, this
committee's continued advocacy for our professional military
education, their efforts has been vital to our sustained health
of our leader development and in fact the very security of our
nation.
We are absolutely committed to the ideals of education in
preparing our next generation of leaders. Leaders that we know
that will operate on a complex future that is marked by an air
of uncertainty and persistent conflict, where the importance of
leader development and professional military education cannot
be overstated.
Education helps leaders develop skills to quickly
comprehend new and challenging situations, to rapidly build
relationships and trust with mission partners and demonstrate
competence and confidence in applying the innovative and
adaptive solutions required to operate in this uncertain world.
As we look at the future environment and observe the
effects of the last eight years on our force and the Army, we
understand that we must continue to change. We are working
diligently to adapt our institutions and policies to better
achieve a balance of professional military education within our
leader development and within our Army.
The Army's PME is progressive in nature. It reflects a
thorough analysis of education and training to ensure leaders
are receiving, as everybody has stated already, the right
skills at the right time throughout their lifelong process of
learning. We continually review our professional military
education to ensure it remains relevant to the force through
various internal, external, and accreditation methods. We are
consistently taking a critical view of what is relevant, what
must change and what outcomes we expect from educating our
leaders.
Our assessment is that the professional military education
system is in fact achieving its objectives. However, we realize
we must continually adjust to meet the current and the
anticipated future demands. We recognize today that not
everybody is getting their PME courses in a timely manner, due
to current wartime demands and capacity challenges. We are
moving forward to meet those challenges.
We also recognize that one component of our Basic Officer
Leader Course was ineffective and not meeting capacity demand.
General Dempsey's decision this year to realign our Basic
Officer Leader Course streamlines initial entry officer
education and will in fact reduce the backlog we find of those
waiting to attend the course.
We are also in the process of redesigning our captains'
career course to enable it to be a more rapid infusion of
lessons learned that we are seeing in the field today.
We have also just finished the expansion of our school for
advanced military study programs by over 30 percent to ensure
that we are meeting the wartime demands that we are
experiencing in the force. These initiatives, from redesigning
our Basic Officer Leadership Course, improvements in our
current advanced operations course at Command and General Staff
College, remain priorities for our Army.
We are also considering a Department of Army level
selection board for the year-long intermediate level education
resident attendance at Command and General Staff College at
Fort Leavenworth.
The Army is clearly focused on improving its professional
military education. Initiatives such as our Army Development
Strategy, our human capital enterprise, emphasis on interagency
collaboration and the continued adaptation and changes to each
level of professional military education demonstrate that
commitment.
Though we are confident in the approach and measures taken
to date, we truly need your help in three distinct areas that
we think will further help enhance our professional military
education.
I appreciate the opportunity to talk about, and address the
change in laws, taking away the joint duty authorization list
credit for non-host military faculty at JPME I granting
institutions.
Although our Army is working on an official position
regarding this topic, as the commandant of the Command and
General Staff College, I can share with you that we strongly
feel this change directly impacts the quality of instruction of
our officers attending at the intermediate level education.
This is all the more relevant, given that Command and General
Staff College, the equivalent PME rates, JPME I accreditation.
The impact of revising the National Security Defense
Authorization Act of 2007 is two-fold. My concern is that this
change eliminates a powerful incentive for officers from sister
services to view this assignment as both developmental and
career enhancing, thus perhaps narrowing the aperture of
highly-qualified officers seeking those opportunities to teach
at sister service institutions.
Second, because our sister service faculty positions have
dropped from joint duty authorization lists, they are a much
lower, now, priority three. I believe that JPME I positions,
and again this is me, I believe that JPME I positions should be
considered on the joint duty authorization list by removing the
restrictions found in Section 688 of Title 10.
I would like to caveat that our sister services continue to
send highly qualified officers to us at the Command and General
Staff College. In fact, the recent selection of the Air Force
and Navy Elements Commanders for command is indicative of that
level of quality.
I would like to also highlight the importance of the
interagency participation that we are experiencing at the
Command and General Staff College and at our Army War College.
Increased participation is essential to our educational
outcomes for leader development. The interagency exchange and
fellows programs provide an opportunity for students to improve
working relationships and further reinforce operational
experiences.
We will continue to facility one-to-one exchanges to
mitigate shortfalls experienced by interagency partners when
they commit personnel to an educational opportunity at our
Command and General Staff College.
And the last item I would like to emphasize, our
comprehensive soldier fitness initiative our Army has just
undertaken. The establishment of this comprehensive soldier
fitness initiative recognizes the tremendous stress that our
soldiers, our family members, and our Department of the Army
civilian force has faced during these last 8 years, and it
seeks to educate our soldiers to overcome hardships and adverse
events, bounce back and in fact grow stronger in the process.
With your continued assistance, we believe we can provide
our leaders and our soldiers with that leadership that they
need to continue serving in our Army. The evidence that this
system is achieving its goals is seen today in the performance
of the United States Army.
The Army is performing magnificently in these most
demanding times. This has not been achieved without mistakes,
pain, and the loss of many comrades.
I do want to also extend an invitation to this committee
and to the both of you to come out and visit us at any time you
would like at the Command and Combined Arms Center at Fort
Leavenworth and the Army's Command and General Staff College or
to any of our 17 schools and centers throughout the United
States Army. An open invitation, we would love to host you at
any time and share with you what we are doing there on our
leader development programs.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Caldwell can be found in
the Appendix on page 49.]
Dr. Snyder. Great. Thanks, General. Mr. Sitterly.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL R. SITTERLY, DIRECTOR OF FORCE DEVELOPMENT,
DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL, U.S. AIR FORCE
Mr. Sitterly. Thank you. Chairman Snyder, Chairman Skelton,
Ranking Member Wittman, thank you for this opportunity to
discuss officer professional military education as the Air
Force Director of Force Development, a position I have held
since last week, but a job that I have been training for since
1976.
Over the last 33 years, I have been a student and faculty
member at Phase 1, 2 and 3 of Non-Commissioned Officer PME
(NCOPME), taught at the Community College of the Air Force and
have attended and instructed as an officer and as a civilian at
intermediate and senior PME.
I mention this because for the first 15 years in the Air
Force, I watched PME grow firsthand in our young institution.
And for the past 20 years, since Goldwater-Nichols, and since
the Skelton Panel, I have watched firsthand PME soar to new
heights in the Air Force. And it continues to soar today.
Our secretary and chief of staff have made developing
airmen, officers, civilians, and enlisted, at the tactical,
operational, and strategic levels, the top priority. In fact,
every single PME program has undergone a significant review and
revamp in the last 3 years.
The first, our university commander, Major General
Fairchild, laid down a challenge to develop officers in
residence schools that look ahead to the next conflict as well
as looking backwards to study past conflicts. We have accepted
that challenge, we have added jointness, we have included
developmental constructs, and today our mission focuses on
preparing officers to develop, employ, and command air space
and cyberspace power in global operations. In short, preparing
the world's best officers, leaders, and strategic thinkers.
We recognize in residence PME as essential for development.
Therefore, we focus efforts through our force management and
development council construct and embarked on a new enduring
framework, institutional competencies to manage human capital
across the entire enterprise.
As part of our continuum of development education, we have
also included a continuum of learning to ensure our airmen
receive the right education, mapped at the right competencies,
at the right time, throughout their careers. Key to the
process, development teams oversee force development, including
key aspects of the PME process to meet functional and
institutional requirements.
Ultimately, an airman's record of performance and future
potential are critical in determining who is selected to attend
PME in residence. Military and Air Force civilian students are
selected through a rigorous and competitive Air Force-wide
selection process.
We also remain focused on the selection of our faculty and
our senior staff members, the foundation for a successful PME
program. A cadre of military members and civilians with varied
educational histories and experiences promotes quality and
stability in PME programs and also enhances the learning.
School curricula are influenced by faculty, students, and
external feedback and inputs. Operational experiences provide
insight into the challenges and opportunities our nation faces.
The Air Force remains flexible to ensure our curricula are
current and relevant and that students are exposed to the very
latest Air Force and joint lessons learned.
The Air Force Learning Committee, another innovation,
validates requests to change the PME curricula. This committee,
composed of air staff functionals, major commands and air
university representatives, balances requested curricula
changes with senior leader priorities and policy. This includes
relevant topics of immediate interest to the joint war fighting
community as well as inputs from the military education
coordination committee.
We have made great progress since the 1989 Skelton Panel
reforms. We have soared. Yet more can be done to inculcate a
truly joint culture and to produce strategic thinkers.
I want to thank this committee, specifically, for the
authority in the FY 2009 NDAA, to allow us to award Ph.Ds to a
select group of airmen, who graduate from our premier school of
advanced air and space studies. Our next strategic thinkers, if
you will. Those golden persons, Mr. Chairman.
Your continued support of our initiatives to grow and to
develop high-quality joint airmen is most appreciated and
ensures our ability to continue to fly, fight and win in air,
space, and cyberspace.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sitterly can be found in the
Appendix on page 78.]
Dr. Snyder. I did pronounce your name right, didn't I?
``Sitterly?''
Mr. Sitterly. Yes, doctor, that is correct.
Dr. Snyder. All right. How about Mr. Lutterloh? Is that
right?
Mr. Lutterloh. Yes, sir, that is exactly right.
Dr. Snyder. Good. Thank you.
You are recognized.
STATEMENT OF SCOTT LUTTERLOH, DIRECTOR, TOTAL FORCE
REQUIREMENTS DIVISION, U.S. NAVY
Mr. Lutterloh. Thank you.
Chairman Snyder, Chairman Skelton, Representative Wittman,
distinguished members of the Oversight and Investigation
Subcommittee, thank you for your leadership, and thank you for
the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the Navy's
approach to professional military education and developing Navy
and joint leaders.
My remarks today will focus on three areas, education
governance, balancing competing demands, and key successes.
The Navy has made significant strides in improving access
to professional military education in the 20 years since Chief
of Naval Operations Admiral Carlisle Trost appeared before the
House Committee on Armed Services Panel on Military Education.
We are fully committed to professional military education as a
key enabler to building a resilient, knowledgeable and adaptive
force, ready to meet the demands of a dynamic, multi-mission,
and expeditionary environment.
We have placed significant emphasis on a balanced approach
to education, which recognizes the foundational importance of
operational excellence and the culture of command in fielding a
ready maritime force. Our education programs are aligned with
the unique professional requirements of Navy specialties that
complement and build upon the broad range of war fighting
experiences.
The Chief of Naval Operations designated the vice-chief as
the Navy's education executive agent to lead Navy's investment
in education by enabling unity of effort through coordinated
policy, validated requirements, prioritized resources and
standardized processes.
As the executive agent, the vice-chief chairs the advanced
education review board that provides oversight of Navy
education policies and programs in support of the national
military strategy.
Our sailors are fully engaged on the ground, in the air,
and at sea in support of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Africa, and around the globe. In the face of many competing
demands, we have been effective in achieving an appropriate
balance that places the highest priority on filling operational
and joint billets while preserving resident, professional
military education opportunities.
We have achieved a number of key successes over the past 20
years. We established a full continuum of professional military
education that spans the career from pre-commissioning through
selection to flag. We expanded resident and non-resident
opportunities and increased emphasis on the integration of
international students in our Naval War College program to
build partnerships essential to our nation's interests and
security.
Our policies, programs, and processes provide us with the
flexibility needed to balance relevant education, develop
operational excellence, perform as an expeditionary force, and
sustain our culture of command. All critical to joint national
and international interests.
On behalf of the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral
Roughead, thank you for your continuing support to assure the
Navy's officer corps benefits from a robust program of
professional military education.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lutterloh can be found in
the Appendix on page 84.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Lutterloh. General Spiese.
STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. MELVIN G. SPIESE, USMC, COMMANDING
GENERAL, TRAINING AND EDUCATION COMMAND, U.S. MARINE CORPS
General Spiese. Chairman Snyder, Chairman Skelton, Ranking
Member Wittman, thank you for the opportunity to discuss
professional military education within the Marine Corps.
The Marine Corps is proud of the programs, students and
staff, and faculty associated with our PME. Graduates of our
institutions are more prepared than ever to assume positions of
increased responsibility.
Critical components of PME are students, faculty, and
curricula, and I am pleased to report that all three of these
components are extremely strong within the Marine Corps. We
have identified deficiencies in facilities and infrastructure
and we are working diligently to improve these two areas.
The Marine Corps PME program is a progressive learning
system designed to educate Marines by grade throughout their
careers. Participation in this program is an institutional
expectation. The program consists of resident instruction,
distance education, professional self-study, and the Marine
Corps Professional Reading Program.
Today's environment is constantly changing, thus requiring
leaders to be able to rapidly adapt and solve complex problems
at lower and lower levels of command and responsibility.
The Marine Corps PME provides some solutions to the
problems, but more importantly, it focuses on how to think.
Critical thinking is more important than ever to the
development of our leaders. The Marine Corps fully supports the
vision of Generals Breckinridge and Gray, by embracing the
educational goal of developing innovative, critical military
thinkers, skilled in both the art and science of war.
Our learning outcomes and programs have been developed and
vetted that provide progressive educational framework as the
material grows more complex, as our students progress through
the courses of instruction offered at our schoolhouses. That is
the Expeditionary Warfare School, Command and Staff College and
the Marine Corps War College at our university.
Although this testimony specifically focuses on resident
PME, it is important to note our progress in delivering quality
PME for our distance education program as it is the vehicle
through which the majority of our Marine officers receive their
PME. The Marine Corps commits significant resources to
delivering quality distance education through the most modern
means available. Our content is derived from and parallel to
the resident curricula and we have used current technology to
put all students in a collaborative seminar, whether in person
or virtually.
I believe the effectiveness of our distance education
program can be measured in that 28 of our non-resident students
have been selected to participate in the school of advanced war
fighting over the last 5 years. This accounts for almost a
third of the total Marine officers selected for that very
competitive program.
Within the Marine Corps, it is expected that all officers
will complete their PME requirements, either through resident
or non-resident means. Philosophically, the Corps believes
completion of PME makes a Marine more competitive for promotion
because completion of each block of PME provides the Marine
with the requisite war fighting skills, mental dexterity, and
analytical ability to perform at the assigned level of
leadership responsibility.
Our resident PME students have already proven themselves to
be among the top performers within their peer group and were
selected to attend our service schools because of their
demonstrated potential for greater service. Upon completion of
courses, our PME graduates are assigned to the most highly
competitive billets in our operating forces, higher
headquarters staffs, and joint positions.
If an officer is not PME complete, he or she is not
competitive for a joint assignment, and we would not nominate
that officer to a gaining joint commander.
The Commandant of the Marine Corps emphasizes the
importance of PME in his Vision and Strategy 2025, when he
states, ``We must promote PME as a career-long activity.''
Officers attending PME are busier than ever, but are eager
to participate, learn, and hone their leadership skills. The
amount of experience of today's students is nothing short of
amazing; particularly of our young officers. We are able to
match the same level of experience in our military faculty,
where the vast majority are combat veterans.
At one time there was a line of thought that this high
level of operational experience might cause students to be
resistant to new ideas. That has not been the case. Today's
students are very receptive to change, anxious to share their
experiences, and eager to learn from one another.
My written testimony contains a detailed explanation of how
we are measuring effectiveness in utilizing the graduates of
our program. We do concur with the Army's position regarding a
change to include JPME I, non-host military positions on the
Joint Duty Assignment List (JDAL). As I stated in my opening
paragraph, ``Critical components of education are students,
faculty, and the curricula, and I am pleased to report that all
are superb.''
Thank you again for this opportunity to speak with you
today, and I welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Spiese can be found in
the Appendix on page 96.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, General Spiese.
Before we go to Mr. Skelton for his questions, I want to
take advantage of him being here and talk about the issue you
just closed with, General Spiese, which is the joint credit,
the joint duty assignment list issue. You, I think, four of
you, I think, specifically talk about it. I think it is a
problem for all of you.
Let me see if I have got this right. The question that we
have, and we recognize it was a change in the 2007 Defense
Bill, if I am in the position of General Caldwell, and I have
an Army officer come to be a faculty member, no one is saying
that Army officer should get credit to get joint credit,
correct?
But if I have a----
General Caldwell. Correct, sir. Not at my institute.
Dr. Snyder. Not at your institution.
But if, in the spirit of all these visits we have made, you
always have some folks from the other services. If you had an
Air Force officer or a Marine or a Navy officer, who has spent
a year or two on an Army base, immersed in the culture of the
Army, currently that person doesn't get joint credit for that
assignment. Is that correct?
General Caldwell. That is correct.
Dr. Snyder. And that was because of the change that was
made in the 2007 Defense Bill?
General Caldwell. That is correct.
Dr. Snyder. Yes. And how does that hurt you in your ability
to get faculty now?
I am directing it to you, General Caldwell, but I assume
that they will stick your hand with a sharp pencil if you say
something wrong, but----
General Caldwell. Well, I saw the eye contact----
Dr. Snyder. [OFF MIKE]
General Caldwell. The challenge we have is, I understand
why the change was made. Because what had occurred is I had
been briefed, I was not there. Is that we had taken like our
Naval officer or officers and had had them work just Naval
issues, teach Naval subjects. And if that is in fact how they
are being utilized, then they should not get JDAL credit. And I
concur with that.
However, what we look for is the robustness. We talked
about that in the 21st century, anything we do will be in a
Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, Multinational (JIIM)
environment. Going interagency, intergovernmental,
multinational.
We in fact tried to build not only the student population
to reflect that, but the faculty population too. We have worked
very diligently to bring interagency faculty in to teach as
part of the Command and General Staff College faculty,
recognizing the richness that brings to the educational
process.
When we are unable to attract Naval and services and Air
Force officers to come to Fort Leavenworth because they don't
get the joint accreditation, we may not get the most highest
potential serving officers to come.
Throughout their career development process, they are
seeking out and want to be serving in some joint billets. If in
fact, we have joint billets on our faculty, and we use them as
a regular faculty member, not as a Naval officer teaching Naval
subjects. They may be a subject matter expert there, but they
are part of the overall faculty developmental process that we
have, then in fact we have the ability to attract more higher
potential serving officers back to our institution.
Dr. Snyder. It increases your pool of people who are
interested, with enthusiasm, to get those jobs?
General Caldwell. Sir, I can tell you for the Army
officers, that as we try to reach out and find some to go to
both Air University and the Naval War College, if we want
recent combat deployers who have just come out of the fight,
they realize that they don't want to stay out too long. They
want, within 2 to 3 years, to have the opportunity to again
serve if we are still engaged in this conflict. And therefore,
during that time period, if they can go to a joint billet, that
is where they would prefer to go.
Dr. Snyder. Do any of you have any comment? General
Caldwell will get an A+ there for his description. If any of
you have any other comments on that? You are all--I have read
your statements, you are all in agreement with that.
Mr. Skelton, for questions?
The Chairman. Let me ask, I will pick on you first, General
Caldwell, if I may.
There are two or three majors in your Command and General
Staff College that you think just might have what it takes to
be strategic thinkers. How are you going to help guide their
career toward that end?
And then, I wish to ask the same question of anyone that
wishes to answer about a couple of lieutenant colonels coming
out of the Senior War College. How are you going to help guide
their career, if you are?
And suppose these two majors are--they think right. The--
they give advice right. You have tested them pretty much in the
war games and the classroom, et cetera. But their Officer
Evaluation Reports (OERs) might or might not make them
competitive for battalion command. What are you going to do
with these two guys? General? Are you going to flunk them out
and let them go elsewhere? Or what are you going to do with
them?
General Caldwell. Mr. Chairman, that is a great question.
And in the past, you are exactly right. Our track has been if
you did not go to command, your probability of making general
officer are almost--therefore, you could have a much greater
influence.
The Chairman. I am not necessarily saying that they should
be generals, but at least in 2006, to have the clout to make
recommendations, et cetera----
These two majors are really pretty good guys. They think
well. You are really high on them. But they are all right as
commanders, as company commanders and they probably might or
might not make the cut, depending on the year, to become
battalion commander. What are you going to do with them?
General Caldwell. I think our recent track of establishing
a strategist track within the United States Army is a career
field. So that we actually have strategists now.
We saw last year the first one----
The Chairman. At what point do you do that?
General Caldwell. Sir, it would be during the time you are
a field-grade officer. Whether it would be with--you could
elect to, you could do it slightly before that too, as a senior
captain; that you would like to opt into that area. And for us,
part of our job at the Command and General Staff College is to
try to help identify those who might have immense potential in
that area and encourage them to think about following that
particular career field.
So part of our faculty's responsibility is during that year
of mentorship with the students of small group dynamics that we
have, if they identify somebody like that----
The Chairman. Is that career field enticing enough for them
to someday be an O-6?
General Caldwell. It is. Yes, Mr. Chairman, it is.
The Chairman. Despite the fact they will never be a
battalion commander?
General Caldwell. That is correct. And last year was the
first time anyone was selected for general officer too, because
we--who had not commanded at the brigade command level. And it
is because we recognized that there is an invaluable,
intangible learning asset there; somebody who has a potential
to contribute in a way that others may not be able to, with
that kind of strategic thinking. So that we in fact take and
encourage that.
The Chairman. I think the committee would be very
interested in your giving a resume of the potential career
field along that line.
General Caldwell. Okay.
The Chairman. How about the rest of your lieutenant
colonels? Is it too late to identify them there? What do you do
with them? General? General Paxton?
General Paxton. No, Mr. Chairman. I don't think it is ever
too late to identify them. And I think, if we look at the
training piece and the education piece, but as General Caldwell
said, there is also a mentorship piece here too. And you get a
chance as a leader, and particularly as a general officer or a
flag officer, to identify people who bring unique skill sets
and unique value to the service.
And you can tell at some point, you can't vote for the
institution, but you know when someone may not be quite as
competitive as someone else, perhaps, for a command or perhaps
a promotion.
But we have an obligation to the individual and to the
institution to groom them appropriately and that is when you
get into the mentorship aspect, when you can teach them in the
den or side bar one at a time. You can proffer their name to a
commander who may need someone in an operations billet or a
combatant command or a commander's initiative group, and you
have mechanisms through the education thing to keep them alive
and flourishing in----
The Chairman. That person has to know that this isn't a
dead end?
General Paxton. Oh, absolutely.
The Chairman. Am I correct?
General Paxton. That is correct, sir.
The Chairman. And how do you do that? How do you do that?
General Paxton. I think two ways. Number one is to
communicate to the individual and then number two, we have an
obligation, not necessarily to our JPME, but to our joint
officers' development to communicate to the institution at
large that there is no one established track record to
guarantee promotion or to guarantee command. That we look at
the breadth of an officer's exposure and experience, and we try
and cultivate that and encourage them.
The Chairman. Yes, you have been on a number of promotion
boards, I suppose.
General Paxton. I have, sir.
The Chairman. Is that taken into consideration?
General Paxton. Absolutely, sir. I mean, obviously there
are litmus tests and things that you look for as a baseline at
great preponderance. Because failure to do that would be to
encourage the wrong skills, I think.
But you also have to look for those idiosyncratic things.
Not necessarily that, but something that is out of the
mainstream. But someone who has contributed to the service, to
the war fight and needs to be promoted, and you find a place
for him or her to land, sir.
The Chairman. And how about the Air Force, Navy, and
Marines?
Mr. Sitterly. Mr. Chairman, as you all know, one of the
results of the Skelton panel, your panel, in 1989 was the stand
up of the school of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Air
University. Since that school has stood up, we have graduated
18 classes now and the culture of that school has been such
that combatant commanders are actually requesting graduated
students from that school because of the strategic thinking
abilities.
The way we get there, and we have a very competitive
process at the beginning for Intermediate Developmental
Education (IDE), we identified the students, the top 20 percent
of our majors, to go into IDE at Air Command and Staff College.
The top percentage of them are identified either by the
school, or they are recruited by the Advanced School while they
are there. And then, they are actually brought over to a post-
IDE school fast.
And what we hope with the legislation that this committee
passed for us last year, that this Congress passed, is the next
step will be that we identify those students who will complete
the Advanced School, and they will do, what we call, ``ABD, all
but dissertation.''
So, they will come to the school, the Advanced School, do
the rigor of the thinking and the academics, if you will. They
will go back out to the field for another operational
assignment. And then, we will bring them back in to do their
senior developmental education, and complete a year of their
dissertation.
The culture of the Air Force is such that these folks that
have completed School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS)
are highly sought after for command and post, and go on quite a
ways in their career.
The Chairman. Mr. Lutterloh.
Mr. Lutterloh. Chairman Skelton, thank you for the
opportunity to comment on this. The Navy has been looking at
this issue seriously over the course of the last year, since my
appointment as the division lead for training and education.
I would say that the most positive movement that we have
right now, is an initiative originated by the chief naval
personnel, by Vice Admiral Ferguson, to create an unrestricted
line alternative career track, in which we can take these hot-
running officers that may be just a step below some of their
peers in terms of operational excellence, and vector them into
some of the more strategic positions.
We have not quite ferreted this out yet. But we are on a
path to do this.
We believe wholeheartedly that mentorship is a valuable
piece of this, continued education across their career path is
a piece of this, and specific assignments, whether that be in
the strategy cells in the Office of the Chief of Naval
Operations (OPNAV) staff in N3/N5, or whether that be as part
of the Chief of Naval Operation's (CNO's) strategic study
groups. These positions will help them develop into the
strategic thinkers that we need.
The Chairman. In answering that question, I don't want to
exclude your first class operational folks from that career
path as well. Because, chances are they would be very
competitive in a strategic environment, chances are.
I am talking about those others that just might not, but on
the other hand could be very, very helpful in strategic
thought.
General.
General Spiese. Mr. Chairman, we believe we do identify our
strongest officers for selection going into school. Even though
not all of them subsequently we selected for command.
And we identified that through a myriad of both
quantitative and non-quantitative qualities to our performance
evaluation system. And we do have examples of successful career
paths, non-traditional career paths rising to the grade of
colonel, not necessarily through command.
So, we identify those, as General Paxton said. We are able
to observe those. We get those in the performance evaluations.
And we continue to bring them along as we identify them in
service.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Caldwell, I
will begin with you.
Just want to get a perspective about the current efforts
within PME and how students are educated and they are exposed?
Can you give me an idea about how early you think maybe is
too early for interagency exposure within PME?
And then also, the progression of service education and
joint education and interagency education, is that the right
mix? Is that a concept that is current today? Is it a concept
that is current today? Is it dated?
And how should we look at, those, joint and interagency
student participation in the current efforts with PME? Are
there things that need to be changed there, based on the
current set of conditions that we face, both internal and
external to our service branches?
General Caldwell. Sir, that is a great question. And one we
have been dealing with over time here, because, we do talk
about education as a life-long learning process.
So, where do we introduce into and add this mix of
experiences along the way?
Our position that we had taken is that, we do in fact need
to introduce interagency at a much earlier phase of leader
development than we have in the past. Traditionally, it has
been at about senior service college level, and about perhaps,
16 to 20 years of service.
Our position now is, given that the young lieutenants today
operate in Iraq and Afghanistan, will find the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) representative there, will
turn and find the U.S. agricultural representative and the ag
teams, as we call them, ``agricultural teams,'' will in turn
find someone from trade and commerce or justice.
We understand now that, we can't wait that long in an
officer's career development and a non-commissioned officer's
career development to do that introduction of that.
And so, our position is that at the intermediate level of
education, the Command and General Staff College level, we do
in fact use a greater level of interagency participation, than
we have done in the past.
Two years ago, when I arrived at Fort Leavenworth, and
looked at the Command and General Staff College, we only had
two from the interagency, and they were both from diplomatic
security out of the Department of State.
Former military guys who had decided it would be kind of
neat to come back and go to school with their buddies. I mean I
talked to both and I understood exactly what they were trying
to do.
Today, as we start this year, we will have up to 30. And we
will have done the exchange program with the interagency. But
we would like to grow it, so that there is one in every single
classroom of our 96 classrooms.
So we want to expand this much further than even are today,
because they are in fact bringing and adding to the educational
process, something that we can't just learn out of textbooks.
And so that when we are participating in our exercises, in our
class room discussions, informal, off-duty relationships, it is
really a powerful tool to facilitate that.
Last year, I graduated two out of the school for Advanced
Military studies from USAID. Today, one of them is serving in
the U.S. Central Command as the USAID representative there. The
other one is in Afghanistan serving as the senior coordinator
there.
That kind of experience that they now bring to those
locations, with their background and training they had in
USAID, a year of advanced studies at the Command and General
Staff College with the Department of Defense, now back into
operational environment, we will be trying to integrate those
two, is just something you can't replicate in any other kind of
fashion.
So, our position is that, and I don't--it is a little
longer than I thought. At the Command and General Staff
College, we absolutely think it is imperative that we have
interagency participation and involvement.
And that without that, the idea of having JIIM, joint
interagency intergovernmental and multinational, is you are
missing the ``I'', a huge piece. We have been great at working
the joint. We have been great at working the multinational. We
have a good international representation and we are growing it.
Just Friday, I was with the chief of the Armed Forces for
India. And he and I, again, talked about taking from three
Indian students out of Fort Leavenworth, up to nine here in the
next year. Because, we recognize the importance of that ally
and the need to do more exchange with them.
But the part that we are still challenged in is in the
interagency, because there is no formal mechanism. It is all
relationship building right now, and studying the conditions
that it appears to be lucrative for that. But yet, the
incentives don't exist within the other agencies for them to
want to send people. It is not career enhancing.
When you talk to my Department of State, Foreign Service
officers that just graduated, they will tell you that it is
considered a neutral kind of event they just went to.
Yet in fact, in future conflicts, those Foreign Service
officers will be absolutely invaluable and have an
appreciation, understanding for what the military, not just the
Army, but the military brings, because, they have trained for
an entire year, and educated for an entire year, for that kind
of environment.
Mr. Wittman. General Paxton.
General Paxton. Thank you, Congressman Wittman.
I guess I would like to go back to the first part of that.
I don't debate at all what General Caldwell said.
And, I think we all see the merits in the interagency, the
inter-government and the multinational. And there is always a
constant debate about how much, and how early?
I would just like to go back to the first part of your
question. And just to reinforce what we have always believed,
and what has been part of General Pace's doctrine and what
Chairman Mullen believes is that the foundation of the bedrock
for having a good joint officer, is to have a service officer,
somebody who is skilled and accomplished in the art and the
science of war fighting. And has mastered the fundamentals of
his tradecraft, or her tradecraft, be it soldier, sailor,
airmen or Marine.
And we firmly believe that we have to integrate and instill
as early as possible, all those intergovernmental, interagency,
and multinational things.
But if you--if we don't want to risk the bedrock foundation
which is really a solid development of a good officer, who
understands war fighting. And I just make that point, sir.
Mr. Wittman. Mr. Sitterly.
Mr. Sitterly. Thank you, congressman for that question. I
agree with both of my colleagues.
I think that because of the nature of the environment that
we are dealing with today, we are sending younger officers out
in smaller groups, in very isolated situations. And I think it
is important that we at least educate them on the strategic
implication of their tactical actions.
And so, we have, at the Air and Space basic course, as part
of our primary developmental education, gone out of our way to
partner with the Army at Camp Shelby and take folks out. And
sort of give them that flavor at a much earlier age than we did
before.
I also agree that the interagency, intergovernmental part
of that is important. We have increased our quotas slightly at
our war colleges. But, for every position that you give to
another person outside of the Air Force, that is one Air Force
person that can't.
And like General Paxton suggested, we have to have good Air
Force officers before we can have good joint officers. Thank
you.
Mr. Wittman. Mr. Lutterloh.
Mr. Lutterloh. Representative Wittman, thank you very much.
You will be pleased to know that our junior officers returning
from our ship, from our fleet ship today, are well experienced
in many of these operations.
Whether in partnership Africa, or in humanitarian
assistance missions around the globe, they are experienced in
exactly what you are talking about, not only interagency, but
also non-governmental organizations as well. So, our junior
officers are experiencing this first hand.
We believe, in the Navy, that this has to be integrated
across the board. I agree with General Paxton wholeheartedly.
Operational excellence at the service level is foundation to a
credible joint commitment.
As we move through that, War College has already integrated
international partners. And our post-graduate school has as
well. So, we think we are moving along in that regard.
War College has considered interagency and is ready to work
with military education coordination councils to make these
changes that will lead us into the future.
Post-graduate school is considering a partnership in Europe
to work on some of these non-governmental organizations. So,
across the board, you see a wave, a movement, that will lead us
in this direction.
The last point I would make is that I think that our
training and our exercises will have to follow suit. And we
will have to do this to reinforce our education with exercises
that integrate international partners, inter-agencies, and even
non-governmental organizations to a large extent.
Thank you.
Mr. Wittman. General Spiese.
General Spiese. Congressman Wittman, although Expeditionary
Warfare School is a predominantly service specific school, we
do present interagency considerations towards the end of the
curriculum and the high end exercises, as a reflection of the
reality of what is happening on the ground.
It is also a joint school with about one-third of the
student population being students from the Air Force, the Army,
or international students.
Clearly though, an intermediate level school, command and
staff college before the greatest of effort, we have a very
broad and expansive, diverse interagency presence. We do have
the luxury of being located in the Washington area. So, we have
access to a lot of agencies, and opportunities for the student
population that we might not otherwise in other locations.
And so, we certainly understand that. It is fully,
integral, into all of our curricula, even those where we
emphasize the service development of our students.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. General Caldwell, you were talking about, you
talked in my office and you talked to Congressman Wittman
about, your exchange with, and Army officers going to the State
Department, or USAID. And you are getting 10 folks back for a
year exchange, so you have the students in your class.
Do you think that is ultimately how these needs are going
to be met? Or is it going to be that the civilian side has to
increase their float, so they have enough people to come to the
schools?
Because, they think they benefit greatly. We have talked
with some of the State Department and IDE people; they think it
is a tremendous experience for them.
Isn't that how this is ultimately going to be solved?
General Caldwell. Mr. Chairman, I think it is. Obviously,
we are trying to----
Dr. Snyder. You are being creative, you are being creative.
General Caldwell [continuing]. So we have tried to find a
way to incentivize it so they want to come out there by knowing
that they would get a replacement person a seat.
I very much appreciate having been to, I don't know, 15 or
20 of our departments and agencies in Washington and personally
sitting and talking with senior leadership in each of them over
the last year and a half.
That their challenges, they don't have a school account,
nor the resources to pay for the moves and the relocations
associated with it, to send their people to our institutions.
And so, whenever we can incentivize it so that, if they
give up a person, knowing they have no school account, which
means that seat does go empty for a year, if we feel it is that
important to us in the Army, then we will provide an officer as
a backfill recognizing we get tremendous value out of that too.
It is a wonderful interagency experience for that officer,
he or she serves in that particular agency or department. Now,
we have a doctor in Health and Human Services (HHS). We have a
person who is a civil affairs officer in USAID.
In the Department of State, we have a mixture of combat
veterans who have served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. We have
really taken and worked who we also put into these exchange
programs, so there is a benefit associated with their skill
specialty and background too, when we do that.
But longer term, there really--what would be most
beneficial, in my personal opinion, is that for the agencies
and departments to have some kind of overhead, a school
account, whatever that is.
And the funding associated with it, so that they can in
fact send people on a life-long professional, developmental
track which we, in the Armed Forces, have found is so
beneficial to us. In the future, I would think that those in
the agencies and departments would want to set up and establish
for themselves too.
Dr. Snyder. Yes. As I think I talked before, just one of
the downsides of what we have done for the last some years,
decades. Really eviscerating in a lot of ways, USAID and State
Department budget and personnel, and we are paying a price for
it now in our national security.
Secretary Gates has probably been the best spokesperson.
The secretary of defense, he started this a couple, 3 years
ago, when President Bush was still president.
That we have to provide financial capability to build up
those personnel forces and budgets. And this is one of the
reasons that it doesn't get a lot of attention. But it is very
important.
General Caldwell, I wanted to ask you also a specific
question.
It is my understanding that the Army is going through an
evaluation process about the numbers of people they think they
can get through the in-residence program.
Do you have any updates on where that is at? We had a
pretty robust goal there for a while, is that still the goal?
Or is it being reevaluated?
General Caldwell. Mr. Chairman, I guess what I should start
by saying is we said that everybody is going to have an in-
residence experience. But, we should have been more clear on
it, that there are two kinds of in-residence experiences.
There is the 1-year program, the 10-month program at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas at the Command and General Staff College.
And then there is the four-month in-residence program that is a
satellite school we have set up.
We are opening up our fourth one here or fifth one really,
very shortly at Redstone Arsenal down in Alabama. That will be
our fifth location.
But, the key is every major in the United States Army will
either go to the 10-month in-residence program or the four-
month in-residence program with the rest done by distance
learning.
There is a core program, ``c-o-r-e'', core program that we
run at both institutions the same. So, the same four months of
instruction, which we feel are inherently required of every
military officer to have will be taught to every major still.
And you will get that by in-residence experience. But then
for the remainder of the program, obviously there is a much
greater richness that is derived out of going to Fort
Leavenworth.
We see about 50 percent of our majors will go through the
program at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, which is the 1-year, 10-
month program. And then the other 50 percent are going to go
through the satellite programs.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, I want to
expand a little bit on what Chairman Skelton talked about a
little bit earlier, and look at things external to PME and
joint PME. And look a little bit about, how do we go about
assigning folks after PME, or joint PME?
Are there things that we can do to look at assignments
prior to PME?
And what are the best assignments to get the most out of,
or to get the best return on, our investment after our folks
get out of PME or joint PME?
And General Paxton, I will begin with you. To sort of look
externally there, about how do we best prepare folks coming in?
Are there better assignments to prepare them?
How do we consider assignments afterwards? And how do we
make sure we get the best return on investment in looking at
those assignments?
General Paxton. Thank you, Congressman Wittman.
I think there is a fairly universal agreement that,
certainly no education is ever wasted. But to maximize the
value of the education, to get the best return on investment,
an immediate assignment after school where you apply and
practice those skills is the best thing.
We have an inherent mismatch, where I think, in any given
year, you get maybe 2,000 students that will go through the
JPME process. And yet, there are 11,000 vacancies that need to
be filled on the JDAL.
And so, even if you were to take a five-year model there,
you are still gong to come up short. And that does not account
for the demands of the war, the competing priorities of the
command pipeline, or a promotion, or things like that. That
just inherently put you on a little different track.
So, the best thing for us is to: a) continue the good work
we do across the board about selecting and identifying the
right folks to go to school, and b) trying to assign them as
quickly as possible after their school to the proper follow-on
assignment.
And then, we are going to have to work through the ``eaches
and others,'' almost on a case-by-case basis about how long
they stay in that assignment, where they go to next.
So, I think if the guiding precept is to use it, and to use
it as fast as you can. That usually puts us in the best stead,
sir.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you.
General Caldwell.
General Caldwell. Sir, what I would say, you know there is
the functional training which is to prepare you for some
specific kind of--particularly job you can do. And there is the
educational experiential training that we hope teaches you how
to think, not what to think.
And therefore, turns you onto a life-long learning process
of wanting to continue to always expand your horizons, trying
different opportunities to evolve your skill sets. So that when
you are confronted with something that is never thought of
before, it is extremely complex and difficult, and is a real
challenge, you have got those skill sets inherently built into
you, that allows you to process and assimilate and add some
order out of this chaos. And sort of establish what it is we
are ultimately trying to answer, or to find a solution for.
And then at that point, take and implement your military
playing process and everything else that we have always had in
place. And has proven very valid over the years, to then follow
through and execute.
Currently in the United States Army, I can tell you, sir.
We are challenged in getting everybody to their professional
military education. When you asked how we are selecting that
right now, we, in fact, are going through a process where we
are writing a development strategy, General Dempsey is the lead
for the human capital enterprise in the United States Army.
He is going to come back with some implementing portions of
that. We have pretty much done the draft already for both the
officers and non-commissioned officer, the Army civilian, and
the warrant officer piece. That would then help set--put some
more timelines on certain things that would occur.
How long would you be in command? When would you have to go
do a joint type of billet?
Because we are finding, after these last eight years, and
the way we have been continuously engaged, that not all of our
officers, non-commissioned officers, warrant officers have been
getting to the professional military education that they should
be.
And so by developing this leader strategy, with its
implementing guidelines, we in fact will add rigor back to the
process that we did have before 9/11 on a very predictable,
established schedule that everybody understood. That we have
gone away from--if we in fact are going to find ourselves in
this war for the next 10 to 15, 20 years, which all of us in
the United States Army today agree will probably be the norm.
Then we have to find a method by which we are going to
ensure that PME is in fact executed to the standard we need to
ensure that we have the same Army 20 years from now, that we
have today. And that we don't mortgage it off.
Thank you.
Mr. Wittman. Mr. Sitterly.
Mr. Sitterly. Thank you, congressman. I am very excited by
what the Air Force started in 2004 with what we called
development teams. We have a team of colonels, one stars, and
two stars that are responsible, by career field, for every
officer from lieutenant all the way through colonel.
Over the last several years, we have watched this mature.
So, this team gets together. And along with input from the
individuals through a web-based form, along with input from the
senior leader, that individual that an officer works for at the
base, and the developmental team, they are making vectors to
the assignment team on where this individual ought to go next.
So, if the team decides that that person hasn't had a joint
assignment yet, or they need to go to command yet, or they may
need more experience on the air staff or the Major Command
(MAJCOM). They go do something different. Then, they have
direct input into that officer.
So, the developmental teams are also making inputs into
folks going to faculty on PME. And they only send their best
and their brightest. And so, they have insight into those
people when they go into the assignments, and when they come
out of the assignments as well.
Thank you.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you.
Mr. Lutterloh.
Mr. Lutterloh. Congressman Wittman, thank you very much. We
believe, in the Navy, that the operational excellence builds
considerable flexibility in our officer corps to meet a wide
array of requirements in the joint community.
Obviously, joint experience, prior to education, is going
to enhance that. But, I believe that all of our operational
rules and our critical restricted line rules positioned those
officers at JPME level--JPME I level, to effectively understand
what is going on.
As we prepare those officers, and Navy's policy right now
is, that prior to commander command, all officers must have
JPME I completed.
So, we believe that that positions those commanding
officers to effectively participate in joint task force
operations, joint operations, coalition operations, to a much
greater degree than ever before.
As we followed that experience up with JPME II, and work
into their careers those joint experiences, I believe we will
get considerable pay off.
Mr. Wittman. General Spiese.
General Spiese. Congressman Wittman, consideration for a
intermediate level school, not surprisingly, is predominantly
based on service-related performance in a younger officer's
career.
We are very selective in our assignment process. In
particular, joint assignments. They are competitive in nature.
And performance, overall, as well as in school, are a
consideration for those assignments.
We select resident top-level school at about 13 percent. As
a consequence of that, we are very selective in our assignments
coming out of top-level school, ensuring we get a solid return
on investment for those graduates.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Sitterly, I have a specific question I want
to ask you.
We heard from some Air Force personnel that in order to be
competitive for your in-residence--and this is an unfair
question to ask a guy who has been on the job for 10 days or
something.
But anyway, they told you to come here. So, you are doing
the best you can with it.
We have heard from some of the Air Force personnel that in
order to be competitive, for in-residence PME that it is
helpful to have done distance learning PME, which seems
duplicative.
I mean, I don't think that is what distance learning was
set up--are they wrong? Or what are your thoughts about that?
Or am I asking a question that you are not up to speed on yet?
Mr. Sitterly. No, I would like to comment----
Dr. Snyder. Yes.
Mr. Sitterly [continuing]. Chairman Snyder. Thank you for
the question.
Through our selection process, we select the top 15 percent
as selects from the order of merit on the promotion boards for
senior developmental education, and the top 20 percent for
intermediate developmental education, so, a very competitive
process to be a select.
The current Air Force policy is that all selects will go to
school. You have a three-year window to go at the intermediate
level, and a four-year window to go at the senior level.
The current policy is that all of the rest of the officers,
who are eligible, are then considered candidates. Everyone is
qualified, if you will, to take the distance learning.
The current Air Force policy is that if you are a select,
you will go. And that you do not need to take the distance-
learning course.
What we have as a policy is that we expect all of the
officers to have the next level of PME done by the time they
are promoted to the next rank. So, that is the current policy.
Dr. Snyder. All right, so--well, maybe we will do this as a
question for the record, because, we are getting kind of wading
around the weeds here.
I wanted to ask, General Spiese?
You made a comment in your written statement about, and I
would like you to amplify on. On page 12 and 13, you talk about
the hiring authority.
It sounds like you are, needing, a statutory change. Is it
a statutory change? Or is it our job or your all job to get it
straightened out?
General Spiese. Mr. Chairman, it is statutory.
Dr. Snyder. Explain it to us, please.
General Spiese. Currently, Title 10 Hiring Authority
requires linkages to 10-month academic programs. We run a
number of other programs out of Marine Corps University that
are shorter in length, that do not tie back to a 10-month
program.
But, we believe would benefit greatly from the latitude
with Title 10 Hiring Authority. In particular, our enlisted
professional military education, and the opportunity to seek
Title 10 support for our senior staff and NCO professional
military education.
We believe that that could bring something to the table for
our senior staff non-commissioned officers.
Dr. Snyder. Let me see if I got this right. Now, are you
talking about the hiring authority for faculty?
General Spiese. Correct, yes.
Dr. Snyder. So, if you have a 10-month course, you have got
some options there that you all want to hire faculty members
for 10 months. If you have two 5-month courses in a row, even
though it is the same person on your premises for 10 months,
you don't have the same hiring authority.
General Spiese. That is how we understand the statute. And
that is how we have been applying the statute. Correct.
Dr. Snyder. Maybe we could try to look in that document,
and see if can sort that out too.
Do the rest of you have that issue? Is that an issue that
you all deal with?
General Caldwell? Mr. Sitterly? Mr. Lutterloh?
Mr. Lutterloh. Mr. Chairman, from a Navy perspective, I
would say that faculty is one of our pre-eminent concerns at
the War College. But that said, I have not encountered this
issue.
Dr. Snyder. General Caldwell, you were about to say
something?
General Caldwell. Mr. Chairman, what I was going to say is;
I am very much aware what Mel is talking about. Through legal
interpretation, because we have tied most of our forces to the
10-month program, we are able to get a legal opinion and hire
the faculty where it has been necessary.
But his point is well taken. It takes a tremendous amount
of interconnectivity and work-arounds to----
Dr. Snyder. Yes, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing you
all have to worry about.
We have to try to get that straightened out.
General Caldwell [continuing]. We would welcome the
Marine's----
Dr. Snyder. Yes, why don't you all get your legal folks to
make some suggestions, and to work with the staff? And see if
we can't get that straightened out.
I wanted to ask--I am about out of time. So, I am going to
ask a general question for each of you.
If you were to sit down today with the combatant commanders
that are out there, and you are training these folks and
sending them to them, do you have a formal mechanism for
hearing from them about whether they think that educational
products, meaning your officers coming out of schools, is what
they need?
And number two, what do you think they would say?
General Paxton.
General Paxton. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the
mechanism which we do have is probably a little bit more
informal, than it is formal. But there are committees and
working groups.
When we routinely work out--reach out, and this is at the
joint staff level, to the services and to the combatants to
manage their input. So, there is not too many initiatives that
we undertake, either through JPME or joint officer development.
We are not actively soliciting the input and the left and
right lateral limits, if you will, from both the services and
the combatant commanders.
I think universally, I believe that they will tell you that
the process is working well, both in terms of development,
quality, and assignment. There is always an issue with
capacity. There is always an issue of how much we can generate
how fast.
And there is always an issue of assignment policy. Who gets
what?
And it is exacerbated, as General Caldwell said, given the
demands of the war, and trying to cycle people in and out of
command, and in and out of both Afghanistan and Iraq.
And that is part of the reason we reach out to talk to the
combatant commands and the services. So, we can look at this
from both the supply side and the demand side, sir.
Dr. Snyder. General Caldwell.
General Caldwell. Mr. Chairman, I have served on the
combatant command staff in a senior-level position. And, I will
tell you what is interesting is each time an officer is
nominated by one of the services, if it is a field grade
officer, major-level, we are looking to see if they are a
graduate of their staff college.
It is the first qualification that you inherently look at
on that bio, whether or not you are going to accept an officer
or not.
And then, if it is a more senior officer, lieutenant
colonel promotable, or a colonel/Navy captain, your question
is, did they go to their senior service college?
We actually ask that question before we normally even ask
whether they are joint-qualified. Because, the feeling is, we
can, if we have to, do on the job training, and teach them the
joint qualification requirements they are going to need for
that particular skill set, and that particular job. Not for
all, but at least for that one.
Much more readily than we can from the one-year in-
residence program they probably experienced while going to the
Naval War College or the Marine Command and Staff College, or
something like that.
But, those are two skill sets I can tell you, Mr. Chairman,
that are readily looked at by everybody on a combatant command
staff, as we assess an officer that we are looking to bring in
to, that have been nominated by the joint staff for duty there.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Sitterly.
Mr. Sitterly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We already know that
the combatant commanders value our SAASS graduates, because,
they ask for specific people to come out to their command.
The other mechanism we use is through the Military
Education Coordination Committee. And each year, the chairman
looks at the various special areas for emphasis.
And so, last year out of nine different areas that were
included in this, those Special Areas of Emphasis (SAEs), I
think about eight of them came directly from the combatant
commanders back to the committee to consider. And the ninth one
came from our Air War College. And that was space of the
contested domain.
So, it is an opportunity for us to hear from the combatant
commanders, things that we want to put into the joint
curriculum at the school to be emphasized. And, it also allows
us then in turn to take it to our Air Force learning committee,
which we have recently devised to look across the spectrum of
education, to see where our shortfalls may be, or to see where
we need to emphasize.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. You don't speak, you can last all day.
Why don't you go first, and we will go back to Mr.
Lutterloh.
General Spiese. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do have formal
mechanisms, of course, for service specific feedback. We do not
have anything similar related to the combatant commanders or
joint commanders.
However, we understand from informal engagement, as General
Paxton had mentioned, that our graduates are well thought of.
And we seem to be hitting the mark.
Obviously, you are responsive to Office of the Secretary of
Defense (OSD) directives, as it relates to joint requirements
inside the joint portions of the curriculum.
Dr. Snyder. And Mr. Lutterloh.
Mr. Lutterloh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In our view, the
feedback from the Combatant Commands (COCOMs) has been
extremely positive on the value of the War College and the
joint professional military education it provides.
I think the flexibility of the naval officers is coveted
out there. The one area, I think, that we probably stand to
improve is on the numbers that we are able to get through that
school, and provide that foundation of joint operations.
That said, we have got a number of mechanisms, both
informal through surveys that are conducted by the War College.
And discussions with other flag officers.
And in particular, our component command that are co-
located with the COCOMs, our Navy commands, provide us
invaluable feedback.
And lastly, both the CNO and the chief naval personnel
regularly conduct boots on ground discussions with those
combatant commanders to get that feedback directly.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. All done.
Dr. Snyder. I want to ask one final question. As you know,
Mr. Skelton was involved in this issue, 20 years ago. And did
great, great work on a panel they had on this topic. And there
were some fairly big changes made in PME.
I think for the last 10 years or so, if not a little bit
longer, I don't think this committee, and the Congress, has
paid as much attention to the issue that probably we ought to
have.
An example might be that issue that we were talking about
with regard to the joint duty assignment list. That is really
the kind of thing we probably should have picked up on two or
three years ago, that was a problem for you.
And I just don't think we--I don't know that we were aware
of it, or not at least hadn't given you the opportunity to
amplify on it.
Do you think it would be helpful, like we do with the
military health care, with recruiting retention, and some other
topics, to have some kind of an annual hearing in the Armed
Services Committee on the specific topic of professional
military education?
I don't except any long answer, but any comments?
General Paxton.
General Paxton. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was going
to save some of this to the kind of closing remarks, if you
care to be gracious enough, and afforded us the opportunity.
Dr. Snyder. Yes.
General Paxton. But, I think, certainly on behalf of the
chairman, and I think most of the services, we truly appreciate
the support of the committee and the subcommittee.
And, we really think that the success that JPME and Joint
Officer Development (JOD) is because of this great relationship
that we have had for the better part of the last 25 years.
So with that as a backdrop, I think the continued exchange
and dialogue is nothing but helpful, and our only thought, if
you will, and certainly not a caveat, is the more that we can
just kind of generally outline left and right lateral limits,
and the more we can raise the floor without being unnecessarily
prescriptive one way or the other, just gives us a lot of
latitude.
Because there are a lot of things that are lagging
indicators to us, and we certainly couldn't have predicted,
given what happened after 9-11, so the pace of PME and the idea
of distance learning and non-resident education, and
composition of the faculties, a lot of this is a constantly
moving target as you well know, sir.
But, thank you for the opportunity. And it is a great
dialogue. And I think we would probably support the continued
dialogue.
Dr. Snyder. Yes. Anybody else have any comments?
General Caldwell.
General Caldwell. Mr. Chairman, I would welcome it. I can
tell you, if somebody asked me who I worked for, sometimes I
work for Chairman Skelton.
It has been an ongoing continuous dialogue for the last two
years I have been in this position. On a regular basis, he
will, in fact, engage and ask those various types of questions.
Which have one, helped me be much more succinct in what I am
trying to achieve on behalf of the United States Army in this
position that I am in, and for our future leaders.
But secondly, just as important, it allows that dialogue.
So again, a much greater appreciation for how members in
Congress can help us move some of these efforts along.
And I think a formal mechanism like this actually is very,
very beneficial. I know when Lorry came out and spent time at
Fort Leavenworth, her and the whole family; we very much
appreciated them being out there. And giving us that
opportunity to discuss and go through.
Because, there are a lot more even smaller items we didn't
talk about today.
Dr. Snyder. Right, right.
General Caldwell. So that we did have the opportunity to
sit with her and her staff was there out there and dialogue
about, if we could receive assistance here or----
Dr. Snyder. Yes.
General Caldwell [continuing]. If you could be more, clear,
in your guidance to us that would be very, very helpful.
Dr. Snyder. Yes.
General Caldwell. So----
Dr. Snyder. Some of them are statutory and some of them are
money issues. And those are the kinds of things that we can
work on.
Any other comments?
I appreciate you all----
Mr. Lutterloh. Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Yes.
Mr. Lutterloh. From the Navy's standpoint, we would welcome
that interaction. We are very grateful for the continued
support of this committee and others in Congress, for the Navy
in general and for the flexibility that we have within the PME
program.
That tyranny of time and increased demands, demands that
flexibility. So we would look for continued engagement with
that to understand where we need to go and move this ahead.
Dr. Snyder. Well, thank you all for your time today, and
for your service. And I am sure we will have some questions,
either informally or formally for the record.
If you have any other comments you would like to make,
please feel free to send them over. And we will make them part
of this, part of the record.
Anything else, Mr. Wittman?
Mr. Wittman. That is it, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
July 28, 2009
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
July 28, 2009
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
July 28, 2009
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER
Dr. Snyder. There can be a tension between Service assignments
necessary for an officer's career development and the needs of the
joint force. From the joint force perspective, can you comment on how
to best manage that tension? What is the optimal balance of Service and
joint competency over a career? Given that current operational demands
in Afghanistan and Iraq may continue for the foreseeable future, is
there currently enough time in a 20-30 year career to optimize both?
General Paxton. The department continues to make significant
strides to ensure officer career development includes Service and joint
competencies. As evidenced by the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq,
joint warfare is the way the department operates. Some of the success
in these operations is due in part to joint competencies becoming a
significant part of Service officer development. Every officer is
likely to be affected to some degree by joint considerations. As such,
joint competencies must continue to become an inherent, embedded part
of Service officer development.
The department's strategic approach to managing joint officers
provides the mechanism to adjust and evaluate the proper mix of
Service/joint development in a 20-30 year career. The recent
legislative changes to joint officer management and the implementation
of the joint qualification system (JQS) allows the department needed
flexibility to provide officers joint experiences and the ability to
recognize the joint experience officers receive. The department can now
recognize joint experience where it occurs and the intensity of the
environment where the officer serves. The Services now have the
flexibility to provide their officers joint experiences of a shorter
duration than the normal three-year joint duty assignment. Officers
serving in joint matters duties in Iraq and Afghanistan can gain the
needed experience to earn the joint qualified officer designation based
on 12 months service in these duties and completion of the required
joint education. Limited Joint Professional Military Education (JPME)
Phase II opportunities and scheduling difficulties creates some delays
in the officer's joint development. The legislative authority to create
a distance-learning component for JPME II would provide the department
a much-needed flexibility to develop joint qualified officers.
Dr. Snyder. Can you comment on how many general and flag officers
are receiving waivers from attending the CAPSTONE course, the joint PME
for newly selected one-stars? Why are they receiving these waivers?
What impact does not attending the CAPSTONE course have on those
officers' ability to operate in the joint arena? We have heard that
CAPSTONE, in the past, may not have been as rigorous as it should have
been. Can you comment on how you ensure that the CAPSTONE course is
suitably rigorous and focused on appropriately targeted high-level
strategic considerations? Currently, the National Defense University
supports the CAPSTONE courses, but without dedicated faculty and
resources specifically devoted to the CAPSTONE program. Is this
arrangement, seemingly ad hoc, the long term solution or is a more
structured arrangement under consideration?
General Paxton. In the past 5 years, the Department granted 11
CAPSTONE waivers against a total population of 606 required to attend
CAPSTONE. The percentage of those receiving waivers over this 5 year
period is less than 2%.
These waivers were granted only to officers whom the Secretary of
Defense determined had demonstrated a mastery of the learning
objectives of the CAPSTONE course. As these officers were determined to
have mastered the required joint learning, there was no discernable
impact on the officers' ability to operate in the joint arena.
CAPSTONE follows an executive education type approach, deemed
appropriate to both the short duration (6 weeks) and non-degree
character of the course. This approach recognizes that the principal
student body (Active Component General and Flag Officers) possess,
almost universally, both JPME I and JPME II experiences and
credentials. The question of academic rigor must therefore be viewed in
a different light than the 10-month resident JPME programs.
CAPSTONE annually conducts a self-assessment under the supervision
of the NDU President, as advised by both the Joint Staff J7 and the
course's Senior Mentors--all retired 4-star G/FOs. All JPME programs
routinely conduct such a self-assessment.
The legislative designation (NDAA 2005) of CAPSTONE as the third
tier in a sequenced approach to JPME effectively caused CAPSTONE to be
viewed as ``JPME III.'' It was therefore determined that an external
evaluation analogous to the Process for the Accreditation of Joint
Education (PAJE) was required.
Joint Staff J7 organized an independent review of CAPSTONE at the
direction of CJCS. Catapult Consultants were hired to form the backbone
of the effort and each Service provided a serving G/FO in augmentation.
The review effort received the personal attention of the CJCS; ADM
Mullen provided in person guidance up front, was kept informed along
the way, and received the results in a personal session.
The review found that CAPSTONE, as a baseline joint experience for
G/FOs, met requirements as established in law and policy. The review
found that there was no indication of any broad discontent with the
course, finding that critique points were on the margins, and of no
pattern. The review further noted that CAPSTONE lacked a mechanism to
demonstrate achievement of course objectives.
As a result of the CAPSTONE review, in June 2009, CJCS issued
specific guidance to the NDU President. This guidance (copy provided to
the O&I Staff) directed four adjustments: 1) a curriculum review to
ensure linkages with other JPME courses (both above and below
CAPSTONE); 2) a heightened focus on the interagency dimension--i.e.,
``How Washington works''; 3) the establishment of an end-of-course
assessment mechanism; and 4) an adjustment in curricula content in the
CAPSTONE Executive Development (Spouses) sub-course.
The institutional architecture in place at NDU for the CAPSTONE
course is categorically not ad hoc; the organizational construct of a
Director, small operations staff and Senior Mentors is considered
appropriate and consistent with the executive education model. The
course methodology puts CAPSTONE Fellows in the presence of senior
leaders inside and outside of the DOD and allows them to interact. This
approach has been found effective in meeting the course objectives,
drawing near universal support from Fellows, Graduates, Senior
Leadership and the like.
CAPSTONE is adequately resourced by NDU.
Dr. Snyder. ``Professional ethics'' does not appear as a discrete
learning area in the officer military education policy (the OPMEP).
Should it be a part of joint education or is it left to the Services to
teach? Can you comment on how professional ethics is made part of PME?
General Paxton. Joint Publication 1 ``Doctrine of the Armed Forces
of the United States'' \1\ establishes in Chapter 1 (Foundations) that
U.S. military service is based on values that U.S. military experience
has proven to be vital for operational success. It further notes that
the values of joint service adhere to the most idealistic societal
norms, are common to all the Services, and represent the essence of
military professionalism. First among the five values, and further
specifically marked as the foremost value, is Integrity.
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\1\ Joint Publication 1, Doctrine of the Armed Forces of the United
States, 2 May 2007, w/Change 1, 20 March 2009.
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Integrity is understood to be `` . . . the cornerstone for building
trust. American Service men and women must be able to rely on each
other, regardless of the challenge at hand; they must individually and
collectively say what they mean and do what they say.'' \2\
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\2\ Ibid; pg I-3.
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It is impossible to separate integrity from ethical behavior,
especially for an officer corps to whom has been `` . . . reposed
special trust and confidence in their patriotism, valor, fidelity and
abilities.'' Inculcating ethical behavior is therefore a bedrock
requirement, common to all developmental efforts, across the Services.
Given the philosophy of the CJCS' Joint Officer Development Vision that
``Joint officers are built upon Service officers'' \3\ it is completely
appropriate that the Services have the primary responsibility to
develop professionalism and professional ethics in their personnel.
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\3\ Pace, General Peter. ``CJCS Vision for Joint officer
Development'' November 2005, page 1.
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The OPMEP however, is not mute on the subject of values and ethics.
The Officer PME continuum notes that the continuum links each
educational level so that each builds upon the knowledge and values
(emphasis added) gained in the previous levels. \4\ Specific to the
Precommissioning level of the continuum, the OPMEP focuses efforts to
inculcating a foundation in `` . . . leadership, management, ethics
(emphasis added), and other subjects necessary to prepare them to serve
as commissioned officers.'' \5\ Both the General/Flag Officer and
Senior levels of the Officer PME continuum JPME venues have joint
learning objectives that go to the skills necessary to build and
sustain ethical organizations and to further evaluate the ethical
ramifications of specific historical and contemporary national security
decisions. \6\
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\4\ CJCSI 1800.01d ``Officer PME Policy'' 15 July 2009, page A-A-1.
\5\ Ibid; page A-A-3.
\6\ Ibid; pages E-E-3; E-F-4; E-G-4; E-I-3; and E-K-2.
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The Joint Staff notes and concurs with the input of the various
JPME institutions to the HASC O&I's similar query to them; in their
totality, the answers further underpin that Ethics is a vibrant part of
PME/JPME.
Dr. Snyder. The Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) at the
Joint Forces Staff College was created from within the existing faculty
and facilities. Is this course currently adequately resourced by the
National Defense University?
General Paxton. The Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) is
adequately resourced. There are no significant budget issues at this
time. JAWS has dedicated classrooms which have the most advanced
technology of any at JFSC. The school has adequate faculty to meet the
mission; however there is no redundancy to allow for seamless turn-over
of faculty or additional tasking of faculty to include research and
writing time. Additionally, the Director must teach in order to meet
the student to faculty ratio of 3.5:1.
Dr. Snyder. The OPMEP requires the Academies to submit a report
every three years. No one can find the 2006 version but your staff
(DJ7) told us the inputs weren't very useful so they are deleting the
requirement for the report for Sep/Oct 2009. Do you think that if the
OPMEP is going to require something, it should be measured? Should the
OPMEP dispense with the joint requirement fully if oversight is not
provided at the joint level?
General Paxton. The 2005 OPMEP (version 01c) required triennially a
report from the Services concerning their overall assessment of how
well joint learning objectives at the precommissioning and primary
levels of education were addressed. The 2009 OPMEP (version 01d)
eliminated the triennial requirement.
The elimination of the triennial report requirement followed from
the first (and only) experience in producing (the Services) and
collecting/evaluating (Joint Staff J7) the report, which occurred
between October 2006 and June 2007. The inputs collectively exposed a
flawed approach in that unverified self-assessments are of diminished
value as an oversight mechanism. Further, that the process proved
burdensome administratively to all participants further increased
concerns as to the value of approach. Accordingly, the working group
from the Military Education Coordination Council (MECC) that produced
the OPMEP 01d version recommended elimination of the requirement.
The data collected in 2006 and 2007 was of varying quality and
coverage, but broadly exposed that multi-year undergraduate
precommissioning programs (Service Academies and ROTC) reported meeting
the joint learning areas. Short-duration precommissioning programs
(such as OCS, OTS, etc.) inputs ranged from ``meeting'' the
requirements (AF OTS, Army OCS) to ``partially meeting'' (Navy OIS,
OCS) to ``not meeting'' (USMC OCS). Results from the Primary venue also
varied: ``meeting'' were the Army's Captains Course and BOLC III; the
Marine Corps' Expeditionary Warfare School; the Air Force's Squadron
Officers College, Air and Space Basic Course and Squadron Officers
School; and the Navy's Primary PME Course (DL), the Surface Warfare
School's Division and Department Head courses, the Naval Supply School
and Naval Intelligence Basic courses. Next, the Navy reported that its
Submarine Officer Basic course ``partially'' met requirements. Last,
the Navy reported that its Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal School and
Marines reported its Officer Basic Course as not meeting requirements.
There is a value in establishing joint learning early in a career
and the joint learning areas at the precommissioning and primary levels
of education have been purposely maintained in the 2009 version of the
OPMEP. This said, the question of how much oversight of the delivery of
precommissioning and primary joint learning is appropriate and
accordingly what method of oversight serves best, has yet to be
resolved. These questions are slated to be addressed by the MECC in the
coming year.
Dr. Snyder. There was an Army decision to send at least 50% of each
Army 0-4 year group to in-residence ILE at Leavenworth. What is the
impact on OPMEP fulfillment/accreditation? What is the impact on
education quality in terms of number and joint faculty/student mix?
What is the impact on other Services wanting to send faculty and
students there given the OPMEP accreditation implications?
General Paxton. The Joint Staff understands that the Army's intent
for resident ILE is for approximately 76% of its eligible officers to
attend a resident JPME I program (to include other service venues). The
remainder is to attend a non-resident program. This intent
fundamentally posits an increase in the number of officers from all
Services attending the ILE program at Fort Leavenworth.
The increase in the size of the resident population at Leavenworth
has caused CGSC to be out of compliance with mandated OPMEP standards
regarding student mix. Currently, 11 of the 92 staff groups
(approximately 12%) now in session \1\ have only 1 officer from either
the Air Force or Sea Services, vice the mandated 1 from each of the
other Services. 176 students, of which approximately 154 are U.S.
officers (143 Army) are negatively effected. These students are not
positioned to fully receive the desired cross-service affected learning
experience.
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\1\ Courses 09-02 and 10-01 in aggregate.
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Army mitigation efforts (to include replacing the missing U.S.
military officer with an interagency representative) are not considered
adequate; the intent of the mandated service mix goes to establishing
jointness amongst the Services, not the interagency. This is especially
true at the intermediate level where officers are transitioning from
tactical perspectives, but are still very much developing as Service
members. Concentrating CGSC's Other Service military faculty (17 total
of which 7 are from the Sea Services) to the lacking groups is also
inadequate both in numbers and effect. First, the number of Sea Service
Faculty is less than the number of Seminars without Sea Service
representation. Second, the concentration of the other service faculty
in 12% of the staff groups leaves the remainder of the staff groups
with diminished access to other service faculty.
The Army's resident and non-resident JPME I programs were last
accredited in February, 2008. Accordingly, they are not due a PAJE re-
certification until 2014; this said, the OPMEP allows for CJCS to re-
visit certification as need dictates. Given the issue, it is likely
that such a revisit will occur in the Fall, 2009. A negative outcome
from such a re-visit, especially if accreditation were to be withdrawn,
would have a dramatic impact on other service participation at CGSC.
Dr. Snyder. The joint schools feel as if they are orphans in the
budget wars, that they don't have a champion like the Services do. Can
you reassure us that the joint/DOD budget process understand the value
that you and the Chairman put on fully funding, specifically, the
National War College, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and Joint
Forces Staff College?
General Paxton. The Chairman and I take every opportunity to
emphasize to Department organizations involved in the budget process
the value we place on Joint Professional Military Education (JPME).
The vast majority of JPME funding is contained in the National
Defense University's (NDU) budget. On behalf of the Chairman, I endorse
NDU's budget submission each year and forward it to the OSD
Comptroller. Further, Joint Staff leadership endorses to Department
leadership the unfunded requirements NDU submits for Department review
through both the annual Program and Budget Review process as well as
the Omnibus reprogramming request sent to Congress for consideration.
Wherever the Programming, Planning, Budgeting, and Execution system
provides an opportunity for us to do so, we ensure DOD organizations
understand the importance we place on JPME. In fact, we have codified
our support of JPME in a CJCS Instruction dealing with JPME and NDU
matters.
Dr. Snyder. Do you feel the officer management system for your
Service complements the PME/JPME system? We've repeatedly heard the
critique that they are not closely aligned. Are there policy changes
that need to be made so officers have time to attend the requisite
schools and complete key developmental assignments for promotion
purposes, but more importantly for leader development purposes?
General Caldwell. Currently officers are being held, by the Defense
Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA), to a rigid time-based
promotion system. Too often professional development finds itself in
stiff competition with the heavy demand of Army requirements.
Inevitably, meeting Army requirements wins out and we try to ``work
in'' professional development. While it is considered essential to the
development of an officer, it is not always mandatory. Meeting specific
gates for promotion has become the driving factor in an officer's fixed
career timeline. While DOPMA was sufficient during a time of peace with
relatively fixed assignment patterns, its lack of flexibility hinders
today's Army's ability to balance increasing professional developmental
demands while maintaining a continuously deployed force in a dynamic
and challenging time. To bring change we would recommend modifications
to Title 10 (DOPMA) that will add flexibility in the promotion timeline
while preserving the goodness of ``up and out.'' The Department of
Defense (DOD) should move away from a rigid time-based promotion system
to a flexible, ``window of time'' based system. This will allow the
Army, and the sister services, to ensure that its officers can achieve
the desired competencies to be effective senior leaders, give them the
requisite amount of time necessary to achieve those competencies, all
while maintaining their sanity and their families.
Dr. Snyder. The Chairman uses a Military Education Coordination
Council (MECC) in a formal process to ``build'' the Officer
Professional Military Education Policy (the OPMEP). Recognizing the
Service Chiefs' prerogatives in terms of ``managing the quality and
content'' of Service-specific curriculum at their PME institutions,
does your Service have a similar formal process for determining and
integrating Service-specific curriculum throughout your school system,
and how does that process tie into your overall leader development
strategy?
General Caldwell. Yes, the Army has a formal process similar to the
Military Education Coordination Council (MECC). The Training and
Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Common Core process is documented in TRADOC
regulation 350-70. The process provides streamlined, consolidated, and
standardized training development (TD) policy and guidance for the TD
process, product development, management, planning, and resourcing, as
well as student testing (test design, development, validation,
administration) and test management.
This process surveys the Army for input on potential new content,
modification of current content, or deletion of outdated content. A
board evaluates recommendations, selects tasks and subject areas for
training and education in Professional Military Education (PME) and
ensures vertical and horizontal integration across officer and enlisted
cohorts as well as between Army components. Training and education
content is continually updated through Needs Analysis. The Needs
Analysis addresses training and education solutions to Soldier
performance deficiencies and for future capabilities that require
changes to the way the Army trains and educates its Soldiers and
leaders.
The process ensures that outcomes identified in the Army Leader
Development Strategy (ALDS) are addressed in the PME common core. The
TRADOC Commander is the approval authority. Branch proponents use a
similar process to determine branch specific training and education
requirements, with the branch chief as the approval authority.
Dr. Snyder. We have heard that officers are arriving at the
combatant commands and joint task forces for joint duty assignments,
even for operational planning billets, without having completed JPME
II. Some combatant commanders have issued policies barring their staff
officers' attendance at the 10-week JPME II course. They believe the
Services should be sending officers who are fully qualified and ready
to serve in their assignments, rather than having the combatant
commander forced to give up these officers for 10 weeks. Can you
comment on what is causing this to happen? Isn't this detrimental to
the force and to the officers involved? Can you comment on the utility
of officers attending the JPME II ten-week course after completing or
late into joint assignments? It's perceived as a perfunctory
requirement (in the nature of ``square-filling'') necessary for
promotion, instead of as a useful part of professional development.
General Caldwell. Army policy is to send officers slated for joint
positions to Joint Professional Military Education (JPME), phase II
enroute to their joint duty assignments. Due to the limited number of
seats, no more than 79, available for each class, coupled with the
critical timing of many senior officer moves, a number of the officers
are not able to attend JPME II prior to arriving at the combatant
command. This is particularly true during the summer months when the
largest numbers of military personnel relocate. Today's high
operational tempo also makes it exceptionally difficult at times to
release officers from the theaters of operation to provide them with
the professional military education that is important to future
effectiveness in strategic assignments. Sending officers at a later
date, regardless of when, still enhances their professional education,
and can even offer added value to an officer's development by adding
current doctrine and practice to their previous exposure to joint
concepts from their previous assignment to a joint position.
Dr. Snyder. The Skelton Panel considered faculty as the determinant
factor in quality education. What policies do your Services have to
ensure that the highest quality military faculty is assigned to the
Service and joint PME institutions including to your other Service
counterparts' institutions? What policies do you have in place
concerning faculty follow-on assignments?
General Caldwell. The Army Human Resource Command (HRC) in
conjunction with the Combined Arms Center (CAC) at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas and the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) at Carlisle Barracks,
Pennsylvania, outlines strict criteria for the faculty prior to
assignment as instructors. CAC and USAWC list in detail the
requirements necessary to be considered for an instructor and then HRC
nominates officers against the positions. At a minimum the criteria
contains a requirement for recent deployment experience and completion
of the officers' Key and Developmental assignment. Due to the current
demands on the force, both the quality and the quantity of who is
available require balancing on the part of HRC. It is to the benefit of
our Army, the services and the officer students to provide the best
quality officers as our instructors. Officers must be accepted by CAC
or USAWC to be assigned as instructors, although those available for
consideration are limited today. While there is no set policy in place
for an instructor's follow-on assignment, HRC usually utilizes their
skills in deploying units or other assignments that will take advantage
of the unique skills that they have acquired as an instructor.
Dr. Snyder. ``Professional ethics'' does not appear as a discrete
learning area in the officer military education policy (the OPMEP). Can
you comment on how professional ethics is made part of PME?
General Caldwell. Professional ethics is a critical component of
our professional military education. It is the basis of who we are as a
profession.
The planned sequence for professional military education (PME)
integration is Basic Combat Training (BCT), the Non-Commissioned
Officer Education System (NCOES), the Basic Officer Leaders Course
(BOLC), Intermediate-Level Education (ILE), and the Civilian Education
System (CES). Each moral development redesign will address Active
Component and Reserve Component courses simultaneously. The objective
``supporting socialization of the professional military ethic across
the Army culture and profession'' will require spiral moral development
in units as the courses are redesigned.
Beyond the preparation of these junior officers and non-
commissioned officers, at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC)
ethics are taught as part of the leadership curriculum. A portion of
this instruction deals specifically with the tenets of ethical
organizations, while the remainder utilizes case study methodology to
put students into ethically challenging situations to evoke responses
and require critical thought. This thread of ethical decision-making
runs throughout the leadership instruction for ILE.
General Casey designated the United States Military Academy (USMA)
as the Army Center of Excellence (COE) for the Professional Military
Ethic (ACPME) in April 2008. In March 2009, USMA became the Force
Modernization Proponent for Ethics and Moral Development with the
mission of assessing the professional military ethic of the force,
integrating knowledge of the professional military ethic, accelerating
moral development in individuals and units, and supporting
socialization of the professional military ethic across the Army
culture and profession. To accomplish these objectives, during fiscal
years 2008 and 2009 ACPME personnel interviewed two hundred and fifty
Soldiers who recently returned from combat and conducted fourteen
separate studies; published nine articles on moral development and the
professional military ethic in Army Magazine, Army Communicator, Army
Times, and Joint Forces Quarterly; developed eighty standard case
studies, fifteen video case studies, an interactive video learning
simulation, and an ethical module of the America's Army video game.
To support the objective of assessing the professional military
ethic of the force, ACPME conducted a curriculum assessment of ethics
related instruction currently conducted across the Training and
Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and has begun analyzing the moral development
``skill level'' required for each rank.
Dr. Snyder. The ten-week Joint Combined Warfighting School (JCWS)
at the Joint Forces Staff College was originally designed as an
operational planning course for Service intermediate level school
graduates (i.e., majors and lieutenant commanders) on their way to a
joint assignment. The JCWS has seen a significant number of more senior
officers (e.g., colonels and Navy captains) and officers who have
already completed a joint assignment in attendance. What changes need
to be made to your officer management policies and practices to avoid
what appears to be a misuse of the course, making its completion a
perfunctory exercise only needed in order to be competitive for
promotion to general or flag officer?
General Caldwell. We make every attempt to get our majors to the
Joint Combined Warfighting School and will continue do so as often as
possible. However, the Army has experienced, and will continue to
experience for the foreseeable future, a shortage of several thousand
majors and captains across our force. The high demand for these
officers generated by Army modular capability growth, and overall
manpower growth to meet the demands of the operational theaters and our
generating forces affects our ability to release some officers to this
useful training. Officers who have attended after their joint
assignment are part of the group that was unable to meet the necessary
timing/availability when they were reassigned. The other challenge we
have faced in getting officers fully joint qualified is the
accreditation of the Senior Service College (SSC). Until 2007, the U.S.
Army War College (USAWC) was not a Joint Professional Military
Education (JPME) II producing course. The small number of colonels that
are now attending the Joint Combined Warfighting School are those
senior officers who, for a variety of reasons, were unable to attend
JPME II producing courses at the appropriate time or went to Senior
Service Schools that were not JPME II producing courses. The Army is
working to make the best use possible of all JPME to ensure that we
meet our obligations to support the Joint warfight.
Dr. Snyder. We've heard concerns expressed by military students
that the quality of the participating military department civilians is
well below that of the military personnel. How does your military
department select its civilian students for intermediate and senior
level PME schools? Is there a process analogous to a selection board?
General Caldwell. Civilian and military students bring different
sets of experiences to the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) seminar. Few
civilian students will have been exposed to the same types of
experiences as military students. Civilians are less likely to have
moved or changed jobs as frequently, been deployed to an active
theater, or been involved in the planning and execution of operations--
resulting in less experience with respect to major portions of the
curriculum. Civilian students bring different perspectives on the
curriculum and frequently offer wider world views on less military-
technical issues. The integration of civilian students creates
professional development for them, and in turn, adds to the military
Officer's professional development; both military and civilian students
need a better understanding of their counterparts.
Civilians selected for senior level professional military education
(PME) go through a multi-level screening. The nomination process starts
with an annual Army-wide solicitation. Interested applicants must meet
a strict list of eligibility requirements, including completion of Army
leadership development training know as the Civilian Education System
(CES), a minimum of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited
institution and demonstrated leadership experience. Applicants must
obtain a letter or recommendation from a general officer (GO) or Senior
Executive Service (SES) within their chain of command for their package
to be forwarded to their respective command headquarters. Each command
establishes internal deadlines for receipt of applications, holds a
selection board composed of command GO and SES personnel and generates
an Order-of-Merit List (OML) with their recommendations to the Civilian
Human Resources (HRC) Agency, Training Management Office (CHRA-TMO),
which manages the Army-wide PME selection board. CHRA-TMO arranges for
six GO and SES board members, ensuring that appropriate demographic
representation is reflected in the board membership. The civilian PME
selection board follows a memorandum of instruction (MOI) whose
guidelines are reviewed and approved by legal counsel, establishing an
OML for all quotas. The selection board results are further reviewed by
legal review for compliance with the MOI before submission of names to
Senior Service Colleges.
Dr. Snyder. Is PME completion career-enhancing for military
department civilians? If so, how? We've heard that after PME
completion, they often return to the same job with the same level of
responsibility with virtually no recognition of what these civilian
students gained from the PME experience. The Air Force apparently has
at least the beginnings of a different program. Can you describe that
and whether you think it could serve as a benchmark?
General Caldwell. PME completion is a significant element in
distinguishing most Army civilian senior leaders. The Civilian Human
Resources Agency, Training Management Office (CHRA-TMO), manages the
Army-wide Graduate Placement Program (GPP) which seeks to match PME
graduates with enterprise-level positions, taking advantage of the
skills acquired. The GPP was established in 2003 as a result of a Vice
Chief of Staff memorandum directing placement of civilian PME graduates
similar to that of military PME graduates. Placement rates for PME
graduates all exceed the 90th percentile. For 2009, 92% were placed in
new positions requiring PME knowledge and skills with 8% returned to
their former position. For 2008, 97% were placed and 3% were returned
to their previous assignment. 2007 and 2006 witnessed 94% placement
rates.
The Central Talent Management Office (CTMO) was established in
early 2009 to manage the Army Senior Civilian workforce. CTMO goals
include: providing civilians the opportunity for assignments with
multiple commands and educational opportunities, cultivate senior
civilian leaders with a joint mindset through joint assignments,
develop senior leaders who are comfortable operating in a global,
multicultural environment and lay the groundwork for a program that
will develop interchangeable senior leaders. This program will improve
succession planning through forecasting and knowledge transfer as well
as reduce the loss of productivity associated with under-lap.
Additionally, this approach will minimize the return of graduates to
their former positions. There is no question that we can do better in
this entire process for the vast majority of our Army civilian
workforce. We recognize there are shortfalls and are working to improve
our system.
We will contact the Air Force to determine if their program has
aspects that are readily applicable for the Army, and to learn from
what they have done for their civilian development program.
Dr. Snyder. We've seen that there are very few in-residence PME
billets available to Reserve Component (RC) officers, notwithstanding
their significant contribution to current operations in Afghanistan and
Iraq. When PME billets do become available, it can be complicated for
RC officers to fill them. The slots are often offered at the last
minute, i.e., once it becomes clear that active duty personnel will not
be able to fill those seats. In addition, attendance will require
Reserve and Guard officers to take ten months time away from their
civilian careers and often will require relocation. What is your
Service doing to ensure that its RC officers undergo the leader
development necessary to fully integrate with their active duty
counterparts in joint operations?
General Caldwell. For the reasons acknowledged above, and because
officer professional military education (PME) courses generally run
from six months to one year, while the Army is able to send some
reserve component (RC) officers, it is very difficult for most RC
officers to attend PME courses in residence. There are multiple options
for RC officers to undergo leader development. The most challenging
development is at the major and colonel level. All majors have the
option to enroll in the distance learning Intermediate Level Education
(ILE) at their convenience or compete for selection for resident
instruction. RC officers at the lieutenant colonel and colonel level
must complete for selection for resident or Distance Education Program
(DEP) Senior Staff College (SSC) education. Considerable effort has
been made in recent years to ensure that these non-resident PME courses
are up to date and highly relevant to the contemporary operating
environment faced by today's deploying Soldiers. In addition, the non-
resident ILE common core course includes all of the Joint PME learning
areas. Hence, all RC Officer who complete the non-resident course earn
the same Joint Professional Military Education (JPME), phase I credit
as their peers who attend the resident course.
The Chief of the Army Reserve (CAR) receives an annual allocation
for the resident and DEP versions of the SSC from the Training and
Doctrine Command (TRADOC). In addition, the CAR receives an annual
allocation for resident ILE. Based upon the number of seats, the
Department of Army Secretariat conducts the Professional Development
Education (PDE) Board and publishes a list of primary and alternate
candidates to attend the versions of these courses. Human Resources
Command (HRC), St. Louis, manages the Order-of-Merit (OML) lists, which
are used throughout the process and not violated for convenience of
individual Soldiers or commands. Allocation for resident ILE and SSC,
while not excessive, is proportional to the Active Component (AC).
Dr. Snyder. There was an Army decision to send at least 50% of each
Army 0-4 year group to in-residence ILE at Leavenworth. What is the
impact on OPMEP fulfillment/accreditation? What is the impact on
education quality in terms of number and joint faculty/student mix?
What is the impact on other Services wanting to send faculty and
students there given the OPMEP accreditation implications?
General Caldwell. The Army, by policy, provides an Intermediate
Level Education (ILE) education to all active duty majors and the
opportunity for the same level of education to National Guard and
Reserve majors through distance learning programs. For many years
selection to attend resident Command and General Staff College (CGSC)
was made by a Department of Army (DA) Selection Board. This board
selected approximately 50 percent of the eligible Officers to come to
resident CGSC, while the remainder was required to complete the course
by correspondence. All Officers were required to complete CGSC,
resident or non-resident, to remain competitive for promotion to
Lieutenant Colonel.
In 2004, the Army made the decision to take a different direction
in selecting students to attend CGSC. There were a number of reasons
for changing this policy. First, if CGSC was needed for success for
assignments as a major and beyond, why should the Army provide less
than half of the Officers the requisite in resident education?
Secondly, the operational environment was growing more complex
increasing the demand on education for leader development. Primarily
for these reasons the Army moved forward to implement universal
resident ILE for all active duty majors.
Universal ILE has two parts: a common core and a credentialing
course. The current 10 month resident CGSC experience consists of two
courses: a 14-week core course which emphasized joint educational
outcomes, and a 28-week Advanced Operations Course. It was setup so the
resident course was primarily oriented toward branch officers--those
officers who serve in duty positions directly related to their basic
branch (infantry, armor, artillery, etc.), while most officers serving
in specialty branches and career fields attend one of our resident
satellite campuses where they take the 14-week Core Course and then
complete a follow-on credentialing course based on their unique
specialty.
Under current policy, approximately 75 percent of active duty
officers should come to Fort Leavenworth for CGSC, but the throughput
capacity to accommodate this was never established. Also, given today's
operational demand the Army simply cannot man the operational force and
have 75 percent of a year group attend CGSC. This has resulted in a
backlog of officers waiting to attend the 10 month and 4 month resident
courses. The Army is currently reexamining this issue as we do have
unfilled seats in each resident program due to the operational force
not being able to release majors to attend their PME. What we have also
found is that an unintended consequence of this policy has been the
demand for increased student numbers from our sister services to
support the increased number of staff groups.
Educationally, the concept of universal ILE for all majors is an
intriguing debate for the Army. Currently, it is unsupportable due to
the operational demands of the force, yet we also recognize the
critical importance of education. We therefore are working diligently
to find the most optimal solution to balance the competing demands.
The impact of the Army decision to increase the number of students
attending the resident ILE at Fort Leavenworth has raised the need for
more non-host military students to meet the requirement of 1 Air Force
(AF) and 1 sea service student in each staff group. The Army requested
sufficient joint officers to meet our growing number of staff groups,
but the sister services have been unable to support our request. The
last agreed to number of sister service officers was 80 per year, while
at full capacity the Army ILE requirement would be for at least 96
officers. We are currently short 1 AF and 9 sea service officers. The
Education Branch of the Joint Staff is aware of this shortfall, and we
have proposed what we believe is a solution to this shortfall. We have
worked diligently over the past two years to increase our Interagency
(IA) student participation. This year we have 18 IA students in the 10
month resident program. This number of students from the Joint,
Intergovernmental, Interagency and Multinational (JIIM) perspective
more than mitigate the shortfall of the joint officers. We have
proposed and do maintain the IA students should be part of the
accreditation process - it's how we truly operate around the world
today and will continue to do so in the 21st century. CGSC has taken
actions to mitigate the lack of sister service students in these staff
groups, but recognizes that this does not bring us into compliance with
Officer Professional Military Education Policy (OPMEP) standards. Joint
accreditation is an absolute must for CGSC to keep its sister service
students. Resolution of this issue will require senior level Department
of Defense (DOD) decisions.
Dr. Snyder. Do you feel the officer management system for your
Service complements the PME/JPMB system? We've repeatedly heard the
critique that they are not closely aligned. Are there policy changes
that need to be made so officers have time to attend the requisite
schools and complete key developmental assignments for promotion
purposes, but more importantly for leader development purposes?
Mr. Lutterloh. The Navy officer management system complements the
PME/JPME system through seeking to satisfy the educational requirements
of eligible officers when and where best introduced into their
individual and community specific career paths. Navy officer career
paths generally provide sufficient time between operational or
milestone assignments for Service College eligible officers to enhance
their skills through resident PME/JPME courses at various points in
their careers. Every effort is made to satisfy these requirements
through resident course attendance, but not all eligible officers get
this opportunity due to competing requirements. Where transfer timing
or community specific manning requirements preclude the ability to send
eligible officers to resident courses, the Navy has compensated through
increasing the available opportunities to achieve PME/JPME in non-
resident education programs. These programs (Fleet Seminar Program,
Web-Enabled Program, and CD-ROM Program) are part of Naval War
College's College of Distance Education and provide flexibility for
those officers that are unable to attend resident courses to gain
concurrent education while fulfilling their career milestone
assignments and meet demanding operational schedules. Balancing the key
assignments with PME/JPME is unique to each officer's career.
No policy changes are recommended at this time.
Dr. Snyder. The Chairman uses a Military Education Coordination
Council (MECC) in a formal process to ``build'' the Officer
Professional Military Education Policy (the OPMEP). Recognizing the
Service Chiefs' prerogatives in terms of ``managing the quality and
content'' of Service-specific curriculum at their PME institutions,
does your Service have a similar formal process for determining and
integrating Service-specific curriculum throughout your school system,
and how does that process tie into your overall leader development
strategy?
Mr. Lutterloh. In October of 2008, the Navy implemented the
Advanced Education Review Board (AERB) for oversight of Navy's
education strategy, policy, resources, and execution including
professional military education. The AERB process is based on the MECC
model with a standing working group and sub-working groups as needed.
The Vice Chief of Naval Operations (VCNO) heads the AERB and acts as
the CNO's executive agent for advanced education. He is tasked with
ensuring education policy is integrated across the U.S. Naval Academy
(USNA), Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC), the Naval War
College (NWC), and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), and with
ensuring education strategy is appropriately resourced. The AERB
monitors policy and will direct policy changes to advanced education
including professional military education as required.
Since March of 2005, the President of the NWC has been responsible
for the content, its development, and the measures of effectiveness
that go along with this responsibility for Navy Professional Military
Education (PME). The goal is to provide the Navy's Total Force with a
standardized, comprehensive understanding of the Navy and its
warfighting capabilities through a PME Continuum. For officers, pre-
commissioning PME had been and continues to be successfully conducted
by the USNA and the Navy Education and Training Command's (NETC) NROTC
and officer commissioning or indoctrination programs. They developed a
new program for primary-level professional military education and
desegregated the intermediate and senior-level programs at the NWC. In
May 2005, the VCNO approved the educational outcomes developed for the
senior, intermediate, and primary programs that had been developed by
the NWC faculty and staffed with the Navy's senior community and
operational flag leadership.
The NWC faculty then determined the curricular content necessary to
deliver the approved, educational outcomes for the senior and
intermediate programs. For the primary-level program, NWC faculty
members worked with key representatives from the operating fleet and
the Navy's communities to determine the curricular content to achieve
the desired learning outcomes. The NWC continually assesses the
effectiveness of its educational programs including the validity of the
educational outcomes which underlie every level of the PME Continuum.
When changes should be required for those outcomes, the AERB process
will be used to examine and, if judged prudent, approve and implement
those changes. Sustaining alignment for the Navy's PME Continuum is
principally the responsibility of the NWC and its faculty for the
Navy's primary, intermediate, senior, and flag officer courses. The
USNA and the NETC continue to deliver and assess the pre-commissioning
programs.
Service-specific guidance is provided to the USNA and the NETC for
accession-level knowledge, skills, and abilities of leaders in the Navy
and Marine Corps. The NWC, charged with the remainder of the officer
PME Continuum, is tasked with developing operational and strategic
level leaders as part of its overall mission. Curricular elements aimed
at building operational and strategic-level leaders are embedded
throughout the primary, intermediate, senior, and flag-level courses.
Professional military education at each of these levels involves
developing habits of thought, transferring broad bodies of professional
knowledge, maritime and joint, and developing key attributes, such as
critical thinking, effective communication, risk management, and change
management.
The Advanced Education Review Board, the curricular review process,
the presence of senior Naval leadership across campus, and thesis
requirements ensure every curriculum at NPS is tied to a concrete fleet
requirement and that NPS graduates will return to the fleet armed with
an education which prepares our officers to tackle the Navy's most
pressing and challenging issues.
Dr. Snyder. We have heard that officers are arriving at the
combatant commands and joint task forces for joint duty assignments,
even for operational planning billets, without having completed JPME
II. Some combatant commanders have issued policies barring their staff
officers' attendance at the 10-week JPME II course. They believe the
Services should be sending officers who are fully qualified and ready
to serve in their assignments, rather than having the combatant
commander forced to give up these officers for 10 weeks. Can you
comment on what is causing this to happen? Isn't this detrimental to
the force and to the officers involved? Can you comment on the utility
of officers attending the JPME II ten-week course after completing or
late into joint assignments? It's perceived as a perfunctory
requirement (in the nature of ``square-filling'') necessary for
promotion, instead of as a useful part of professional development.
Mr. Lutterloh. There are 2,199 non-critical Navy joint billets
(JD1) and an additional 127 billets that are coded joint critical
(JD2). There are no prerequisites to fill non-critical billets.
Critical joint billets must be filled by Joint Qualified Officers or
officers on a waiver. Some of the joint billets are also coded for
planner qualifications.
The requirements for a Joint Qualified Officer are:
JPME Phase I
JMPE Phase II
Previous joint duty assignment
For those officers targeted for joint critical billets the Navy
makes every effort to assign Joint Qualified Officers or schedule and
complete JPME Phase II prior to reporting. Navy also works to get JPME
II en route to the non-critical JD1 billets as well. Due to assignment
timing challenges (control grade officer inventory, JPME Phase II
classes, incumbent's rotation dates, prospective gain's rotation dates,
and the Joint Qualified Officer waiver process) completion of JPME
Phase II prior to reporting is not always possible.
Ideally the Navy would send Joint Qualified Officers to all
critical joint billets. However, the need for our front-running
officers, our future leaders, to maintain tactical and operational
proficiency, gain leadership and command experience, and pass
warfighting skills to our junior members competes with JPME II and, in
limited cases, precludes this education enroute.
In these cases, obtaining JPME Phase II on the backside of joint
assignments remains valuable for future Joint or Navy operational staff
assignments whether in control grade or flag billets.
Dr. Snyder. The Skelton Panel considered faculty as the determinant
factor in quality education. What policies do your Services have to
ensure that the highest quality military faculty is assigned to the
Service and joint PME institutions including to your other Service
counterparts' institutions? What policies do you have in place
concerning faculty follow-on assignments?
Mr. Lutterloh. The War Colleges' staffs are comprised of both
civilian and military personnel. The civilian staff provides continuity
and a rigorous theoretical approach while the military staff brings
current and relevant experience to the classroom.
The Navy uses the Military Personnel Manual 1301-202, Officer
Special Assignments--Nominative Billets/Nomination of Officers, (dated
September 19, 2008) as guidance for nominating officers for faculty
positions at the Naval War College, National Defense University, and
other service colleges. It requires that individuals being assigned as
service college faculty be informally ``proposed'' to the gaining
command. The service college is then able to ``screen'' the officer's
qualifications prior to reporting. If the officer does not possess the
credentials they are looking for, discussions on alternate candidates
begin between Navy Personnel Command and the Service College.
Quality of faculty members going to Professional Military Education
institutions is assured based on the rank requirements and the very
nature of the officers assigned to a War College Faculty. Billets for
these positions are primarily coded for commanders or captains with a
limited number of lieutenant commanders (11).
At Service War Colleges, 46% of Navy faculty billets are filled by
post-command commanders/captains (40 of 101) or post-major-command
captains (6 of 101). These individuals go through statutory selection
boards and administrative career screening boards, which select
officers to promote in rank and command ships, submarines, and
squadrons. These are the Navy's best and brightest.
There are no policies in place concerning faculty follow-on
assignments. Follow-on assignments vary by community (Aviation Warfare,
Surface Warfare, Submarine Warfare) depending on current fleet demand
signal and individual desires.
Dr. Snyder. ``Professional ethics'' does not appear as a discrete
learning area in the officer military education policy (the OPMEP). Can
you comment on how professional ethics is made part of PME?
Mr. Lutterloh. Professional ethics is an integral component of the
Navy's Professional Military Education (PME) Continuum. At each level
of PME, professional ethics is a continuing theme that is studied and
explored. The PME curriculum properly builds toward life-long learning
in the field of professional ethics. The Navy believes effective
leaders must be steeped in professional ethics and exhibit duty, honor,
integrity, moral courage, dedication to ideals, respect for human
dignity, exemplary conduct, teamwork and selfless service. Accordingly,
ethical issues are addressed at every level of Navy PME as detailed
below.
Ethics lessons are incorporated into the Introductory Enlisted PME
course designed for E-1 to E-4, the Basic PME course targeted at E-4 to
E-6, and into primary PME course for E-7 to E-8 and O-1 to O-3.
For intermediate and senior-level resident students at the Naval
War College (NWC), the core academic program includes a year-long
Professional Military Ethics Program, with the theme, ``Enduring
Ethical Dilemmas: Rights and Responsibilities of the Professional
Military Officer.'' The program provides a series of events that allow
the student body to discuss relevant issues associated with the
professional military ethic as it relates to their classroom studies.
The NWC non-resident program provides an opportunity for a focus on
professional ethics akin to the ethics program for resident students.
Resident programs at the NWC are also augmented by a series of elective
courses taught within the leadership area of study. The marquee
elective course is ``Foundations of Moral Obligation: The Stockdale
Course''.
Also, senior-level students take the Senior Leadership Seminar
(SLS) sub-course of National Security Decision Making. In one session,
devoted to civil-military relations and the profession of arms, the
students discuss ethical challenges and issues routinely faced by
national strategic leaders. SLS examines more than a dozen biographical
case studies of successful and failed strategic leaders. Each year,
seven to nine senior course students are selected for the Stockdale
Group to conduct advanced research and analysis resulting in specific
recommendations to improve the manner in which U.S. Navy officers are
developed for senior leadership positions. The current research is
using the lens of competencies, perspectives and values in examining
the critical development of those officers. Professional ethics is a
critical component of values development and will be a focus of the
research over the coming years.
The mission of the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) is to educate, train,
and develop future Navy and Marine Corps officers.'' The ``standards''
set by USNA graduates are embodied in the attributes of character,
ethics and leadership and serve as the benchmarks for the core
institutional values of Honor, Courage and Commitment. The USNA
graduate's attributes form the basis of a professional officer identity
that each junior officer carries to the Fleet.
The Leadership Education and Development Division provides
midshipmen with an integrated and comprehensive educational program in
leadership, ethics, character, and law. The curriculum consists of
formal instruction by military and civilian professionals and is
complemented by the practical knowledge and real-time fleet experiences
of Navy, Marine Corps, and Joint Service leaders.
The Character Development and Training Division integrates the
moral, ethical and character development of midshipmen across every
aspect of the USNA experience and facilitates the development of the
leadership and character attributes outside the normal academic
environment. This integrated character and leadership development
program is the most important feature that distinguishes the USNA from
other educational institutions and officer commissioning sources.
The USNA also has a unique asset in the Stockdale Center for
Ethical Leadership. Chartered in 1988 by the Secretary of the Navy, and
named for Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale, a Medal of Honor recipient
noted for his inimitable leadership, uncommon valor, and unwavering
integrity, the Center's mission is to empower leaders to make
courageous ethical decisions. The Stockdale Center enhances the efforts
of all those at the USNA who have a part in the leadership and moral
development mission.
Beginning with the example of the President, Naval Postgraduate
School (NPS), and extending to every corner of the campus, professional
ethics are understood to be the organizational standard. The study of
ethical consideration seeps into every curriculum across campus. The
institutional expectation and regard for ethics in duty is constantly
reinforced by a robust cadre of retired flag officers and Navy captains
who serve as both faculty and staff, mentoring naval officers
personally and professionally. This culture is further reinforced
through the Secretary of the Navy's Guest Lecture series, an ongoing
program which brings flag and general officers to speak to the NPS
student body.
Instruction of ethics is completely embedded throughout Navy PME.
In addition to Navy's Education Institutions, other ethics-strong
curricula are provided through Navy Chaplain Corps Courses, Supply
Corps Officer Courses, Division Officer Leadership Course, Department
Head Leadership Course, Command Leadership School (XO/CO/Major
Command), Officer Candidate School (OCS), and Naval Reserve Officer
Training Corps (NROTC).
Dr. Snyder. The ten-week Joint Combined Warfighting School (JCWS)
at the Joint Forces Staff College was originally designed as an
operational planning course for Service intermediate level school
graduates (i.e., majors and lieutenant commanders) on their way to a
joint assignment. The JCWS has seen a significant number of more senior
officers (e.g., colonels and Navy captains) and officers who have
already completed a joint assignment in attendance. What changes need
to be made to your officer management policies and practices to avoid
what appears to be a misuse of the course, making its completion a
perfunctory exercise only needed in order to be competitive for
promotion to general or flag officer?
Mr. Lutterloh. Joint Combined Warfighting School (JCWS) no longer
provides an Operational Planner certification and requires prior
completion of JPME-I by all prospective students, which cannot
generally be attained prior to the rank of lieutenant commander.
Therefore, the first opportunity to attend JCWS for the majority of
naval officers is at the rank of commander. Twenty-three percent of 685
Navy JCWS graduates since 2007 have been captains. The remainder have
been commanders or lieutenant commanders. It is Navy's goal to assign
our officers to Joint Education institutions prior to their joint
tours; however, because of community requirements and career timing
issues, Navy has, by necessity, sent select officers to JPME-II
following their initial joint tour. Rather than being a ``perfunctory
exercise,'' completion of JPME-II in these instances is important in
preparing for future joint assignments and potential flag rank. Because
assignment of post-joint tour officers to JPME-II is seen as the
exception, vice the rule, there is no evidence at this time that
changes must be made to Navy's officer management policies and
practices.
Dr. Snyder. We've heard concerns expressed by military students
that the quality of the participating military department civilians is
well below that of the military personnel. How does your military
department select its civilian students for intermediate and senior
level PME schools? Is there a process analogous to a selection board?
Mr. Lutterloh. Civilian leadership and workforce development falls
under the purview of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy
(Civilian Human Resource) and the Office of Civilian Human Resources
(OCHR) for the Department of the Navy (DON). Most of the civilians who
participate in intermediate and senior level PME do so as a result of
their participation in a structured developmental program such as the
Defense Senior Leader Development Program (DSLDP). As such, there is a
screening process in place designed to ensure each individual has the
requisite education, competence and experience levels required by the
specific program, including all elements of the program such as PME,
prior to being accepted into the program. We are aware of concerns that
some civilian participants are lacking in experience equivalent to
their military counterparts. Therefore, a more rigorous screening
process has been implemented recently at both the Department of Defense
(DOD) and component levels. This process calls for a Senior Executive
level panel to review all applications and recommend those applicants
qualified for the specific developmental program, ensuring that only
qualified applicants are nominated to the DOD program office. The DOD
program office hosts a six-hour assessment center in which the
candidates' demonstrated leadership competencies are evaluated and
documented in an assessment report. Once all candidates have been
assessed, those who have demonstrated the requisite leadership skills
and have documented the requisite education and experience are
recommended for acceptance into the program by a Senior Executive panel
comprised of representatives from all DOD Components, which includes a
mix of flag/general officers and SES members. Recently implemented,
this process has significantly improved the quality of civilian
candidates.
Dr. Snyder. Is PME completion career-enhancing for military
department civilians? If so, how? We've heard that after PME
completion, they often return to the same job with the same level of
responsibility with virtually no recognition of what these civilian
students gained from the PME experience. The Air Force apparently has
at least the beginnings of a different program. Can you describe that
and whether you think it could serve as a benchmark?
Mr. Lutterloh. Professional Military Education (PME) completion is
career-enhancing for Department of the Navy (DoN) civilians. It is true
that, immediately upon completion of PME, civilian employees most often
return to the same position they occupied prior to attending PME.
However, they are frequently assigned to work on corporate strategic
initiatives due, in large part, to the perspective they bring as a
result of their PME experience. Both the PME experience, together with
the developmental requirements imposed by the specific developmental
program, most often affords the participant with opportunities to
demonstrate their capabilities to Senior Executives and Military
leaders throughout the DoN and the Department of Defense (DOD). This
exposure frequently results in a career-enhancing job change for the
individual. Although DoN follows a merit systems principles-based
approach to position management, the transition to Community Management
presents greater opportunity for the Department to use succession
planning and overall talent management to ensure civilians with PME are
recognized and considered for positions with greater responsibility.
We understand that the Air Force takes a more centrally managed
approach to its leadership development and related positions. If
standardizing the selection process for civilian employee participation
in PME career management following completion is a desired goal, Navy
recommends careful evaluation and adoption of best practices from
across DOD Components.
Dr. Snyder. We've seen that there are very few in-residence PME
billets available to Reserve Component (RC) officers, notwithstanding
their significant contribution to current operations in Afghanistan and
Iraq. When PME billets do become available, it can be complicated for
RC officers to fill them. The slots are often offered at the last
minute, i.e., once it becomes clear that active duty personnel will not
be able to fill those seats. In addition, attendance will require
Reserve and Guard officers to take ten months time away from their
civilian careers and often will require relocation. What is your
Service doing to ensure that its RC officers undergo the leader
development necessary to fully integrate with their active duty
counterparts in joint operations?
Mr. Lutterloh. At the Naval War College (NWC), there are a small
number of student billets dedicated for members of the Reserve and
Guard components, which are highly competitive and consistently filled.
Those fortunate enough to attend in-residence, either the intermediate
or senior course, have the maritime and joint warfighting knowledge and
appropriate leadership skills to fully integrate in contemporary joint
operations.
However, there is a significantly greater opportunity for Navy and
other Service Reserve and Guard members to enroll in one of the four
non-resident, intermediate-level programs offered by the NWC. Each of
those courses is focused on producing officers skilled in applying
operational art and operational perspectives, adept as naval and joint
planners, and prepared for operational-level leadership challenges.
Like their resident counterparts, these graduates are prepared to
integrate fully with their active duty counterparts in contemporary
joint operations.
During the past five years, 5594 Reserve officers have been
enrolled in these courses, representing 27 percent of the total
enrollment. No qualified Reserve officer has been denied a seat. Navy
leadership recognizes the critical importance of these educational
opportunities and annually provides the President, NWC with additional
resourcing to support this educational opportunity.
Navy uses every opportunity available to continuously communicate
the value of Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) to the Fleet.
We educate officers on available opportunities for the various levels
of PME and avenues to facilitate their participation throughout their
careers. Commander, Navy Reserve Force provides Reserve Component (RC)
officers joint leadership development opportunities to include: JPME
Phases I/II, War Colleges (Navy, Army, Marine Corps, Air Force), Joint
Advanced Warfighting Schools, and Joint Combined Warfighting School.
There are also tailored joint education classes specifically developed
for the RC such as Navy Reserve Advanced Management (NRAM), AJPME, and
Joint Forces Reserve Officer Course (JFROC). Of note, NRAM and JFROC
are high level, strategic courses specifically developed to assist RC
officers in preparing for the rigors and challenges of current
operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fiscal year 2009, Navy funded
$2.4 million in in-residence school quotas, which are boarded at the
flag officer/senior O-6 level, to ensure the best candidates are
selected.
Dr. Snyder. Do you feel the officer management system for your
Service complements the PME/JPME system? We've repeatedly heard the
critique that they are not closely aligned. Are there policy changes
that need to be made so officers have time to attend the requisite
schools and complete key developmental assignments for promotion
purposes, but more importantly for leader development purposes?
General Spiese. Professional Military Education is an integral part
of an Officer's career progression and factors significantly into
assignment process for Marine Corps Officers, which we believe is
adequate. The Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC) Officer Assignments
Branch is charged with filling valid staffing requirements (both
internal and external) and building a balanced officer corps. Officers
are expected to serve in their Primary Occupational Specialty (PMOS),
at each grade, in the operating forces. When not serving in the
operating forces, officers are typically assigned to career broadening
assignments which include resident PME, supporting establishment, and
upper-level staff (both Joint and HQMC Staff). All resident PME venues
are filled to capacity during each Fiscal Year (FY) Staffing Cycle.
Those officers who do not attend resident PME are expected to complete
it via the Distanced Education Program (Independent Guided Study or
Seminar). Failure to complete appropriate PME for grade will adversely
affect an officer's competitiveness on both statutory (promotion) and
non-statutory (command/program selection) boards.
Dr. Snyder. The Chairman uses a Military Education Coordination
Council (MECC) in a formal process to ``build'' the Officer
Professional Military Education Policy (the OPMEP). Recognizing the
Service Chiefs' prerogatives in terms of ``managing the quality and
content'' of Service-specific curriculum at their PME institutions,
does your Service have a similar formal process for determining and
integrating Service-specific curriculum throughout your school system,
and how does that process tie into your overall leader development
strategy?
General Spiese. Marine Corps Order 1553.4B identifies the President
of Marine Corps University as the proponent for PME within the Marine
Corps. This unity of command allows for centralized planning and
decentralized execution, thus providing a coordinated officer leader
development continuum from captain through general officer.
The President of Marine Corps University integrates and manages PME
curricula via a Curriculum Review Board (CRB) formal process. He chairs
the board that is comprised of all school directors, vice presidents,
key staff members, and others as required. Each school is required to
conduct a thorough brief of their curriculum every two years or earlier
if a learning outcome is changed. While the briefing covers course and
class description, hours devoted to each session, budgetary
considerations, and other relevant data, the most important aspect of
the board is the vetting of learning outcomes and methods of
assessment. Schools discuss, in detail, what the students should learn
as a result of each course and how the institution will assess whether
the student learned as required. Representation of each level of PME by
the appropriate school director during these board meetings allows the
integration of Service-specific and joint curriculum among all schools.
This is an excellent forum to ensure that a change at one level does
not adversely impact PME at another level. Similarly, redundancy is
reduced and connectivity is enhanced.
Leadership is a key component of the curriculum of each school so
the CRB serves as an excellent means to manage and link leader
development content at each level of PME. In fact, schools have
dedicated courses and classes on leadership that are thoroughly
discussed and vetted during the CRBs. Additionally, Marine Corps
University is in the final stages of producing a revised education
continuum that delineates learning outcomes for each level of PME. This
will serve as an azimuth for the CRB sessions and help ensure that
leader development and other key components are properly integrated
throughout the continuum.
Dr. Snyder. We have heard that officers are arriving at the
combatant commands and joint task forces for joint duty assignments,
even for operational planning billets, without having completed JPME
II. Some combatant commanders have issued policies barring their staff
officers' attendance at the 10-week JPME II course. They believe the
Services should be sending officers who are fully qualified and ready
to serve in their assignments, rather than having the combatant
commander forced to give up these officers for 10 weeks. Can you
comment on what is causing this to happen? Isn't this detrimental to
the force and to the officers involved? Can you comment on the utility
of officers attending the JPME II ten-week course after completing or
late into joint assignments? It's perceived as a perfunctory
requirement (in the nature of ``square-filling'') necessary for
promotion, instead of as a useful part of professional development.
General Spiese. Every effort is being made to have officer's
complete JPME II prior to assuming a Joint Duty Assignment List (JDAL)
billet. The Marine Corps sources approximately 200 JDAL billets per FY.
Approximately 80 Marine Corps Officers graduate from one of the Service
Level or National Defense University (NDU) Top Level Schools each year
(JPME II accredited). Of these graduates who did not have a previous
joint assignment, 98% are sent to follow-on JDAL assignments. The
remaining JDAL assignments are sourced with officers who have satisfied
FMF PMOS requirements and are postured for success in the joint
environment. The Marine Corps receives 75 school seats per FY at the 10
week JPME II course. Additionally, officers who have completed the
Experience based Joint Duty Assignment (E-JDA) tour pre-requisites are
also competing for these school seats. The limitation in throughput has
resulted in officers having to attend JPME II during or even at the
conclusion of their JDAL assignment. While this is less than optimal,
it is a reality based on school seat quotas. Alternative means to
obtain JPME II credit, to include web based courseware or inclusion in
the joint Distance Education Program have been discussed.
Dr. Snyder. The Skelton Panel considered faculty as the determinant
factor in quality education. What policies do your Services have to
ensure that the highest quality military faculty is assigned to the
Service and joint PME institutions including to your other Service
counterparts' institutions? What policies do you have in place
concerning faculty follow-on assignments?
General Spiese. Marine Corps University establishes high standards
for both military and civilian faculty. The desired criteria for
military faculty at the Marine Corps War College includes the rank of
colonel, a master's degree from an accredited institution, a TLS
graduate, recent operational experience, joint experience, and previous
teaching experience. At Command and Staff College the desired criteria
are the rank of O5/O6, TLS graduate, a master's degree from an
accredited institution, and recent operational experience. The good
news is that we have been successful in recruiting faculty who possess
most of the desired prerequisites. The bad news is that these same
criteria are used by promotion and command screening boards so that our
faculty rarely stays over two years due to promotions, selection for
command, or selection for critical billets. Some military faculty is
aboard for only one year. However, we have made a conscious decision to
accept a high turnover rate in order to get the highest quality
faculty. On the plus side, the constant infusion of faculty just
returning from the operating forces ensures the curricula are relevant.
Currently, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) describing the
qualities desired for Sister Service faculty exists for JPME II
institutions. A similar MOU is being developed for JPME I institutions.
These MOU ensure faculty possesses the baseline prerequisites, thus
helping to manage the assignment of non-host faculty to Sister Service
institutions.
Faculty departing MCU are subject to the standard USMC policies
governing assignments. Generally, the guiding principles are the needs
of the Marine Corps, the professional needs of the officer, and the
personal desires of the officer, in priority. The need of the USMC is
the determining factor.
Dr. Snyder. ``Professional ethics'' does not appear as a discrete
learning area in the officer military education policy (the OPMEP). Can
you comment on how professional ethics is made part of PME?
General Spiese. The Marine Corps War College conducts a Leadership
and Ethics Course that provides the student with tools he or she can
use both in the other courses in the curriculum and throughout a
career. Designed to expand on the solid leadership experience and
education/training of War College-level students, the Leadership/Ethics
course blends the study of theory with discussions with senior military
and civilian practitioners of strategic leadership. The course begins
with a study of complexity, critical/creative thinking and decision-
making that includes seminars on the Profession of Arms, the ethical
use of military force and the ethical challenges of senior leaders in
the complex strategic environment. The discussion of ethics at the
strategic level also occurs in other areas of the Marine Corps War
College curriculum. The National Security and Joint Warfare course has
at least 10 classes that deal directly with ethical questions. These
include classes such as: Civil-military relations; the military and the
media; Non-governmental actors on the battlefield; Current issues in
National Security; Coercion; pandemics; Weapons of Mass Destruction;
Defense in Support of Civil Authorities; Counterinsurgency; and others
that do so more obliquely. The War Strategy and Policy course also has
several classes that deal with ethics at the policy and strategy level.
At the School of Advanced Warfighting, professional ethics is
broken out in two overt sessions 1) The My Lai case study, and 2)
Decision making in a problematic environment. These cases build upon an
ethical foundation built at the intermediate school level and below.
The focus is on the strategic implications of difficult ethical
decisions and the available actions to the commander. Where applicable,
ethics are brought into each planning problem as either friction or
establishing the framework of the operational environment.
Command and Staff College adopts the philosophy that ``human
factors'' dominate war and conflict and, consequently, the subjects of
leadership, morality, ethics, and the art of command are central to an
understanding of the profession of arms. The examination of moral and
ethical questions takes place in a variety of ways. In the Leadership
Course students will examine and assess the Law of War and Morality of
War, particularly studying the My Lai massacre, the Biscari incident in
Sicily in WWII, Haditha and Abu Graib. Ethical issues contribute to
discussions of command climate, relationships with subordinates, and
command philosophy. Students draft a command philosophy early in the
second semester and revise it over the remainder of the academic year.
This year they will brief it to their peers and get peer feedback as
part of the revision process. Several exercises explore ethical issues.
During the Warfighting from the Sea course, the Response to
Catastrophic and Disruptive Events exercise, the Counterinsurgency
Exercise, and Exercise NINE INNINGS all deal with the complexities of
the operating environment, which include ethical questions. The
College's Strategic Communications block, including the media sub-
course, touches upon ethical issues. The Culture and Interagency
Operations course is replete with ethical issues, such as the
effectiveness of cross-cultural communications, post-conflict stability
and reconstruction, decision-making in complex and ambiguous
interagency environments, just to name a few. The Operational Art
course explores decision-making at campaign levels, which includes
ethical issues regarding the use of force in traditional and irregular
settings.
Dr. Snyder. The ten-week Joint Combined Warfighting School (JCWS)
at the Joint Forces Staff College was originally designed as an
operational planning course for Service intermediate level school
graduates (i.e., majors and lieutenant commanders) on their way to a
joint assignment. The JCWS has seen a significant number of more senior
officers (e.g., colonels and Navy captains) and officers who have
already completed a joint assignment in attendance. What changes need
to be made to your officer management policies and practices to avoid
what appears to be a misuse of the course, making its completion a
perfunctory exercise only needed in order to be competitive for
promotion to general or flag officer?
General Spiese. Our officer management policies are sound. There is
currently a backlog of officers who require JPME II in order to obtain
the 9702 Joint Qualified Officer (JQO) MOS. This back log is a result
of the Service Level Top Level Schools not being JPME II accredited
until 2007. It is also compounded by the recent implementation of the
E-JDA path toward obtaining the JQO designation. We see this anomaly as
self correcting over time. Instituting alternative JPME II venues will
only serve to expedite this process.
Dr. Snyder. We've heard concerns expressed by military students
that the quality of the participating military department civilians is
well below that of the military personnel. How does your military
department select its civilian students for intermediate and senior
level PME schools? Is there a process analogous to a selection board?
General Spiese. Civilian Marines apply to attend ILE and SSE as
part of their professional development opportunities. Usually, a review
panel selects the best qualified to participate in these programs since
seats are limited.
Marine Corps University recruits civilian students from a wide
variety of interagency partners. Generally, the quality of those
interagency students has been very good. The Marine Corps War College
and the Command and Staff College maintain a dialog with the agency HR
offices and discuss desired attributes before their respective
selection panel convenes. The key factor for civilian students is
comparable operational experience to that of the military students.
Additionally, Manpower and Reserve Affairs Department (MP Division)
has a process in place analogous to a selection board for all other PME
schools sponsored throughout the Department of Defense. A MARADMIN
message is sent out throughout the Marine Corps to solicit potential
candidates for the PME schools that contain information in ref to the
school and documentation required to apply. Once the nomination
packages are received by the Program Manager (PM), they are reviewed
for completion. A panel consisting of approximately three Senior
Executive Service members reviews the applications and identifies the
best qualified candidates in rank order.
Dr. Snyder. Is PME completion career-enhancing for military
department civilians? If so, how? We've heard that after PME
completion, they often return to the same job with the same level of
responsibility with virtually no recognition of what these civilian
students gained from the PME experience. The Air Force apparently has
at least the beginnings of a different program. Can you describe that
and whether you think it could serve as a benchmark?
General Spiese. Attending a PME program is definitely career-
enhancing for civilian Marines. PME is an investment in the future.
Sometimes there is an immediate return on investment, but sometimes
it's a long-term investment. The civilian personnel system is not
structured to promote all civilians attending PME programs. The intent
however, according to OPM guidance is for the Marine Corps as an
institution to assume responsibility for the development of future
leaders as coaches, mentors, teachers, and most of all, exemplars
within and without leadership development programs. Our efforts are to
ensure continuity of leadership by identifying and addressing potential
gaps in effective leadership. This is accomplished by implementing and
maintaining programs that capture organizational knowledge and promote
learning. Upward mobility on the civilian side must be in accordance
with the merit systems principles which only allow an organization to
hire the best qualified candidates for a position without pre-
selection.
In the end, it is logical to assume that some will return to the
same jobs, with essentially the same responsibilities. However,
civilians completing PME programs are definitely more qualified than
their peers not participating in the programs and they can expect to be
more competitive when it comes to selection to key positions and
advancement within the federal government.
The Lejeune Leadership Institute, Marine Corps University is
currently reviewing what the other services are designing and
implementing for their civilian workforce. This review also includes
what is provided by other government agencies.
Review of the Air Forces' civilian leadership development process
provides excellent insights and a reasonable construct for the Marine
Corps to consider. Their civilian leadership development model is based
on a four course approach that addresses entry level civilian workers
(acculturation) through sustained education (continuing professional
development). This is an emerging initiative of theirs with significant
potential to hire and sustain a professional civilian workforce for the
Air Force. Additionally, the Army's Civilian University's programs have
been reviewed for potential use by the Marine Corps.
The Marine Corps has recognized the importance of developing a
professional education program for its civilian workforce as well. The
Lejeune Leadership Institute is currently in the process of defining,
designing, developing, and implementing a similar development program
that is being implemented by both the Army and Air Force. The Marines
model envisions a curriculum consisting of five courses that will be
delivered through blended seminars, using Blackboard and regional
campuses with global reach to our civilian workforce. The model and
delivery of the civilian leadership curriculum will parallel a similar
construct used for our officer and enlisted nonresident professional
military education.
Dr. Snyder. We've seen that there are very few in-residence PME
billets available to Reserve Component (RC) officers, notwithstanding
their significant contribution to current operations in Afghanistan and
Iraq. When PME billets do become available, it can be complicated for
RC officers to fill them. The slots are often offered at the last
minute, i.e., once it becomes clear that active duty personnel will not
be able to fill those seats. In addition, attendance will require
Reserve and Guard officers to take ten months time away from their
civilian careers and often will require relocation. What is your
Service doing to ensure that its RC officers undergo the leader
development necessary to fully integrate with their active duty
counterparts in joint operations?
General Spiese. Marine Corps Reserve Affairs releases a MARADMIN
message every summer announcing RC Officer PME opportunities available
for the following academic year and solicits applications to attend
full length schools (FLS), as well as staff training courses and
participation in PME distance education programs. The release of the
MARADMIN at this particular time provides RC officers with notice of
opportunities almost a full year in advance of the individual course
convening dates. A RC Officer PME Selection Board typically occurs
during the month of November and the results are released via MARADMIN
that same month.
The RC of the Marine Corps is allocated a fixed number of quotas
for FLS (full length course)-Top Level Schools (TLS) and a fixed
percentage (1%) of quotas for FLS-Intermediate Level Schools (ILS). The
quota breakdown for FLS-TLS and FLS-ILS, as well as FLS-Career Level
Schools (CLS) is provided below:
FLS-TLS (JPME II Accredited)
(2) Air War College
(2) College of Naval Warfare
(2) Industrial College of the Armed Forces
(1) Marine Corps War College
(2) National War College
(3) U.S. Army War College
FLS-ILS (JPME I Accredited)
(2) Air Command and Staff College
(1) Canadian Joint Command and Staff Program
(8) Marine Corps Command and Staff College
(2) Naval Command and Staff College
(4) United States Army Command and General Staff College
FLS-CLS
(3) Marine Corps Expeditionary Warfare School
In addition to releasing the results of the RC Officer PME
Selection Board, an alternate list is simultaneously generated. The
Marine Corps recognizes the difficulties associated in getting RC
officers to attend FLS on short notice, so an alternate list is
generated so that RC officers can prepare for potential FLS attendance
in case another RC officer, or potentially even an Active Component
officer, has to drop from a course. Alternates are provided with the
pre-course work, if applicable, and encouraged to complete all pre-
course work in the event a vacancy becomes available.
The Marine Corps also recognizes the difficulties associated with
RC officers having to relocate for FLS attendance and take ten months
time away from their civilian careers. For this reason, additional
opportunities in the form of staff training courses and PME distance
education programs exist for RC officers to receive the appropriate
level of PME. The staff training courses are two weeks in duration and
the PME distance education programs, depending upon the course, can be
completed at a time and place of the officer's choosing or physically
attended one weekend per month in lieu of the officer drilling at a
Selected Marine Corps Reserve unit.
Dr. Snyder. Do you feel the officer management system for your
Service complements the PME/JPME system? We've repeatedly heard the
critique that they are not closely aligned. Are there policy changes
that need to be made so officers have time to attend the requisite
schools and complete key developmental assignments for promotion
purposes, but more importantly for leader development purposes?
Mr. Sitterly. The Air Force continues to make developing our Airmen
a priority and recognizes the close tie between force management and
force development. In fact, three times per year, the Force Management
and Development Council (FMDC) meets to provide advice and decisions in
these areas. The FMDC is a Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force-chaired
body whose membership includes the Major Command Vice Commanders, the
Functional Authorities, the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, the
Chief of the Air National Guard, and the Chair of the Air Force
Executive Resources Board. Under the FMDC, there are 5 sub-panels.
Three are population focused: Officer, Enlisted, and Civilian Force
Development Panels; two are synchronization focused: Air Force Learning
Committee and the Expeditionary Skills Senior Review Group.
The Officer Force Development Panel (OFDP) is composed of seven
three-star general officers, a senior statesman, and several advisors.
This body recently conducted a systematic and comprehensive review of
Air Force Developmental Education policies, including those related to
Professional Military Education. Additionally, the OFDP has been
focused on how to deliberately develop officers for deep and broad
leadership roles, especially those in the joint environment. At this
point, we do not anticipate making policy changes, but the panel may
recommend programmatic changes that would result in a different
sequence of development.
Developing Airmen has long been a focus for the Air Force; that
remains true today.
Dr. Snyder. The Chairman uses a Military Education Coordination
Council (MECC) in a formal process to ``build'' the Officer
Professional Military Education Policy (the OPMEP). Recognizing the
Service Chiefs' prerogatives in terms of ``managing the quality and
content'' of Service-specific curriculum at their PME institutions,
does your Service have a similar formal process for determining and
integrating Service-specific curriculum throughout your school system,
and how does that process tie into your overall leader development
strategy?
Mr. Sitterly. Yes. The Air Force developed the Air Force Learning
Committee (AFLC) to serve as the gate-keeping body for AF functional
injects to curriculum. The AFLC is comprised of Air Staff, functional,
MAJCOM and Air University (AU) representatives. The Committee
determines whether requested topics should be integrated in PME
curriculum/programs in accordance with senior leader priorities and
vision. Prior to the AFLC, educators adjudicated functional requests on
a case-by-case basis, which lacked formal AF guidance or senior leader
oversight/prioritization. In addition to the AFLC, AU is building an AF
OPMEP for AF officer education that will be presented to the AFLC in
the spring of 2010. This AF OPMEP will help to lay a foundation of
requirements for AF officer education.
Dr. Snyder. We have heard that officers are arriving at the
combatant commands and joint task forces for joint duty assignments,
even for operational planning billets, without having completed JPME
II. Some combatant commanders have issued policies barring their staff
officers' attendance at the 10-week JPME II course. They believe the
Services should be sending officers who are fully qualified and ready
to serve in their assignments, rather than having the combatant
commander forced to give up these officers for 10 weeks. Can you
comment on what is causing this to happen? Isn't this detrimental to
the force and to the officers involved? Can you comment on the utility
of officers attending the JPME II ten-week course after completing or
late into joint assignments? It's perceived as a perfunctory
requirement (in the nature of ``square-filling'') necessary for
promotion, instead of as a useful part of professional development.
Mr. Sitterly. Fundamentally, this is a timing/scheduling/seat
availability issue. Overall, we have had no problems filling USAF class
seats to 100%. However, with only four JMPE II courses annually, and
those with limited seating, it is inevitable that some officers will
not be able to attend prior to assuming their joint duties (the vast
majority of our officers move during the summer months). Our priority
is to send officers ``enroute,'' but when the choice is between sending
the officer to the joint position or allowing them to sit and wait for
a class, we feel it is in everyone's best interests to have the officer
report to the joint organization and begin the new job, albeit without
JPME II. For example, if we waited to send officers to this September's
course before reporting to the joint job, that joint position most
likely would have been vacant for over three months (mission impact)
and the family would be moving during a school year (retention impact),
which is a larger disservice to all concerned.
Fortunately, we have had good success in working with joint
commands to send officers after their arrival; albeit on average,
slightly more than halfway through the joint assignment.
We are aware of only one combatant commander policy barring their
staff officers from attending the JPME II ten-week course--for the next
course we have received 53 names from nine combatant commands, which
tells us this practice is not widespread. That said, this policy is
somewhat troubling and we have addressed our concerns with the
appropriate J1 staff.
The Air Force views service in a joint assignment as a valuable
part of an officer's professional development and attendance at
requisite JPME II is mandatory to be designated a joint qualified
officer (JQO). To the Air Force, JPME II is not seen as a ``square
filler.''
Dr. Snyder. The Skelton Panel considered faculty as the determinant
factor in quality education. What policies do your Services have to
ensure that the highest quality military faculty is assigned to the
Service and joint PME institutions including to your other Service
counterparts' institutions? What policies do you have in place
concerning faculty follow-on assignments?
Mr. Sitterly. AF military faculty members are selected by the AF
assignment system. Development Teams (DTs) vector officers based on
qualification, career progression and needs of the AF and DOD.
Assignment and career field teams manage placement. Air University
works closely with the Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC) or the
Colonels' Group to ensure highly qualified faculty members are assigned
to meet the mission requirements of its schools. Each school identifies
requirements for its military faculty to AFPC and works closely with
them to ensure officers being considered for faculty duty meet minimum
requirements. Departing faculty members are vectored for the
appropriate developmental follow-on assignments by their respective
DTs.
In addition to assignment management by the DTs, the AF has
developed additional opportunities for follow-on assignments for
faculty. In 2007, the AF implemented a program to competitively select
officers through the developmental education designation process to
instruct at Squadron Officer School for 2 years and then attend Air
Command and Staff College as a student. Additionally, officers may be
selected to instruct at Air Command and Staff College for 2 years and
then attend Air War College as a student.
Dr. Snyder. ``Professional ethics'' does not appear as a discrete
learning area in the officer military education policy (the OPMEP). Can
you comment on how professional ethics is made part of PME?
Mr. Sitterly. Ethics is a foundational requirement in all officer
professional development curricula taught throughout the Carl A. Spaatz
Center for Officer Education. The Air Force Institutional Competency
List (included in Air Force Policy Directive 36-26, Total Force
Development, Air Force Doctrine Directive 1-1, Leadership and Force
Development, and cross-referenced in Air University Continuum of
Officer and Enlisted Professional Military Education Strategic Guidance
(CESG)) directs the teaching of Ethical Leadership under Standard 3A in
order to prepare students for future leadership challenges.
The AF embraces ethics as a cornerstone of its professional
development programs, exemplified by the foundational doctrine
statement contained in Air Force Doctrine Document 1-1: ``The
professional Air Force ethic consists of three fundamental and enduring
values of integrity, service and excellence.'' These core values
permeate the curricula at each officer school as well as the
expectations for student performance both within the academic programs
and beyond.
Ultimately, ethical lessons are embedded in curricula taught at all
levels of officer in-residence PME and distance learning programs. For
example, at the Air and Space Basic Course, students are introduced to
ethical standards, values, and integrity in the ``Officership'' lesson;
at Squadron Officer School, students face true-to-life ethical dilemmas
in the ``What Now, Commander?'' block; at Air Command and Staff
College, ``Ethics in Time of Crisis and War,'' ``Ethical Leadership,''
and ``Morality and War'' are blocks in the Leadership and Command
courses; and finally, Air War College engrains ethical leadership
throughout its curriculum, even including differing cultural ethics
amongst coalition partners. Furthermore, AWC offers nine elective
programs in which students may explore ethical challenges faced by
senior leaders.
Dr. Snyder. The ten-week Joint Combined Warfighting School (JCWS)
at the Joint Forces Staff College was originally designed as an
operational planning course for Service intermediate level school
graduates (i.e., majors and lieutenant commanders) on their way to a
joint assignment. The JCWS has seen a significant number of more senior
officers (e.g., colonels and Navy captains) and officers who have
already completed a joint assignment in attendance. What changes need
to be made to your officer management policies and practices to avoid
what appears to be a misuse of the course, making its completion a
perfunctory exercise only needed in order to be competitive for
promotion to general or flag officer?
Mr. Sitterly. The Air Force values the skills gained at JCWS and
ensures those attending need those skills as part of their assignment.
There are not a significant number of senior Air Force officers
(colonels) attending JCWS. In fact, of the last four classes, 47% of
the Air Force officers were majors. Only 14% were colonels. The Air
Force does not believe that attendance at JCWS is a ``perfunctory
exercise'' needed solely to become competitive for promotion to
general. As stated in question 38, joint service is a valuable part of
an officer's professional development; joint education is an essential
part of the joint experience.
We are satisfied with the current guidance in DOD Instruction
1300.19 that allows for both intermediate and senior level students to
attend JPME II, and believe we are sending an appropriate mix of junior
and senior field grade officers to JCWS.
Dr. Snyder. We've heard concerns expressed by military students
that the quality of the participating military department civilians is
well below that of the military personnel. How does your military
department select its civilian students for intermediate and senior
level PME schools? Is there a process analogous to a selection board?
Mr. Sitterly. Each year there is an Intermediate/Senior
Developmental Education (IDE/SDE) Designation Board (DEDB) nomination
procedural message and Civilian Developmental Education (CDE)
nomination call that goes out to the field. Civilians self-nominate for
qualified IDE/SDE programs and route their applications through their
Senior Raters for approval. All eligible employees are encouraged to
apply; however, commanders and managers only encourage and recommend
quality civilians. Civilians are nominated by their chain of command to
their functional community. Each respective functional Developmental
Team (DT) ranks those employees to go forward to the CDE Board. The CDE
Board is comprised of an SES-level panel which identifies high
potential civilian employees to participate in AF IDE/SDE programs. The
goal is to identify high potential employees for the developmental
education (DE) programs that best suit the employee's career goals and
the needs of the AF. Civilians identified by the CDE are in-turn
forwarded to the DEDB for final selection. Respective career fields DTs
monitor and work follow-on assignments for employees upon graduation.
Follow-on assignments are selected based on the best utilization of the
employee's DE experience.
Eligibility criteria are included in the Civilian Developmental
Handbook. To be eligible to attend AWC, civilians must be a GS 14-15 or
NSPS Pay Band 3. Civilians must be a GS 12-13 or NSPS Pay Band 2 to be
eligible for ACSC attendance.
Dr. Snyder. Is PME completion career-enhancing for military
department civilians? If so, how? We've heard that after PME
completion, they often return to the same job with the same level of
responsibility with virtually no recognition of what these civilian
students gained from the PME experience. The Air Force apparently has
at least the beginnings of a different program. Can you describe that
and whether you think it could serve as a benchmark?
Mr. Sitterly. Yes, however we are continuously working to improve
and implement new initiatives to enhance the careers of our civilian
workforce.
The AF believes it is important to invest in the development of its
civilian workforce, especially since the civilian workforce makes up
about 60% of the officer and equivalent population (up from about 50%
in the 1990s). We have a robust selection process and encourage
employees to volunteer to attend in-residence programs. Generally, AF
participants in developmental education have exhibited a history of
mobility, and participants must sign mobility agreements as part of the
application process.
The AF recognizes that our ability to find high-quality candidates
depends on supervisor and senior leader involvement. Senior leaders
routinely encourage participation in programs. When members are
assigned to developmental education, they are placed onto centrally-
funded positions, thereby freeing up the organization to hire a
replacement. This also allows the AF to find a new assignment for the
participant. The intention is to find a position which capitalizes on
the education and experience gained during the program, and one that
continues the member's development.
The AF generally relies on the Development Teams, a group of senior
leaders from each functional community, to identify appropriate follow-
on assignments. Recently, we initiated a review of our ability to find
follow-on assignments that build on the learning in each developmental
education program. This information will be reviewed by our Civilian
Force Development Panel, a select group of senior AF career members of
the Senior Executive Service, who advise on the creation, adjustment,
and adequacy of our civilian force development strategy, policies,
programs, and initiatives. If the results of this analysis show we are
not executing our philosophy, we will work on a new strategy for
identifying post-program assignments.
Dr. Snyder. We've seen that there are very few in-residence PME
billets available to Reserve Component (RC) officers, notwithstanding
their significant contribution to current operations in Afghanistan and
Iraq. When PME billets do become available, it can be complicated for
RC officers to fill them. The slots are often offered at the last
minute, i.e., once it becomes clear that active duty personnel will not
be able to fill those seats. In addition, attendance will require
Reserve and Guard officers to take ten months time away from their
civilian careers and often will require relocation. What is your
Service doing to ensure that its RC officers undergo the leader
development necessary to fully integrate with their active duty
counterparts in joint operations?
Mr. Sitterly. The Air National Guard (ANG) and Air Force Reserves
(AFR) ensure officers undergo the leader/force development necessary to
fully integrate with their active duty counterparts in joint
operations. The career field managers, Development Teams, and the
respective components' Career Management Board are involved in efforts
to inform and guide high potential officers to the joint arena.
The ANG and AFR are each given designated developmental education
quotas each academic year. For CY09/AY10 starts, ANG received 20 Senior
Developmental Education (SDE) and 24 Intermediate Developmental
Education (IDE) in-residence quotas that award JPME I & II credit. The
ANG was able to fill all but 7 of the allotted slots for this year. The
AFR filled 21 Senior Developmental Education (SDE) and 21 Intermediate
Developmental Education in-residence quotas that award JPME I & II
credit. Additionally, at the junior level, ANG/AFR each receives
approximately 40+ Air and Space Basic Course and 100+ Squadron Officer
School in-resident quotas per year.
Specifically, ANG/AFR request in-residence officer developmental
education quotas through an annual submission to the Developmental
Education Designation Board (DEDB). Requests are based on historical
attendance statistics, adjusting input as trends/requirements change.
Quotas are approved and provided to the ANG/AFR in time to announce an
application period, convene a competitive selection board, and notify
personnel of selection for the upcoming academic year. Normally, any
short-notice opportunities are the result of late-notice civilian or
interagency quota cancellations that are offered to the ANG/AFR above
the normal allocation. These quotas are never difficult to fill and
ANG/AFR are always given an opportunity to fill them, as well as the
active duty component. Historically, the AFR has normally been prepared
to take advantage these additional quotas.
While it is true that ANG and AFR personnel experience unique
challenges as a result of selection to attend in-residence
developmental education programs, such as extended absences from
civilian employment and maintaining dual residences, there are
alternative means of completing IDE/SDE programs. Both ANG and AFR
personnel are eligible to complete their PME requirements via
correspondence, seminar, or by participating in one of the 45 Air
Reserve Component Seminar Programs for Air Command and Staff College
and Air War College. These programs are a combination non-resident/
student-led seminar program (blended learning), augmented with 2-week
attendance requirements at Maxwell AFB, AL, scheduled periodically
throughout the course. All three options are available, regularly
utilized, and recognized in the development of ANG and AFR officers;
the resident and non-resident offerings present a robust portfolio of
opportunities.
AFRC also has a professional development program which offers the
opportunity to attend leadership development opportunities to over 400
officers each year prior to or after IDE or SDE completion.
Joint Duty Assignment List (JDAL) Billets at JPME I Institutions
Submitted in response to questions raised by the
Oversight & Investigation Subcommittee
House Armed Services Committee
28 July, 2009
1) Does each service support adding JPME I faculty to JDAL? Why?
The Marine Corps University supports removing the exclusion in
Title 10, Section 668 which prohibits non-host JPME I joint training
and education faculty and instructors from the JDAL. Inclusion of these
billets will recognize the significance of these positions and the role
of faculty in the development of joint leaders. While each billet
should be evaluated on its own merit, those billets that are
responsible for the development, delivery, or assessment of joint
professional military education should be included in the JDAL.
Development of competent joint leaders is the cornerstone of
strengthening joint matters throughout the Services. The faculty
charged with that responsibility should be in the JDAL.
2) How do these positions meet the Joint matters requirements in
law in Title 10 section 668?
There is no better way to master a subject than to teach that
subject. This is particularly true when the student population is
increasingly more experienced in service and joint matters. The average
ILS student now has multiple deployments and has worked within a joint,
interagency, and multinational environment. Non-host JPME faculty with
curricula responsibilities are immersed in joint matters. They must be
experts in their parent service, learn the service environment of their
host institution, and be an expert on joint warfare and joint matters.
This clearly meets the definition of joint duty assignment of Title 10,
Section 668, in that the officer definitely gains ``significant
experience in joint matters.''
3) Should this be available to only non-host faculty, or should all
faculty be afforded the opportunity if the position they are in meets
the requirements of a validated position?
Only non-host JPME I faculty should be considered. Immersion in the
culture, operation, and policies of the host service is the ultimate in
joint acculturation. While gaining expertise in joint matters, the non-
host faculty learns the ethos of a Sister Service. Host faculty do not
experience the same joint acculturation.
4) How will this affect the quality of Military faculty?
By rescinding the listing of JPME I faculty as part of the JDAL,
the FY07 NDAA made recruitment of high-quality military faculty much
more difficult and created a significant obstacle in attracting the
best faculty to educate our leaders. Today an officer must balance
requirements for joint duty, command tours, staff tours, and various
service related assignments. Officers are hard pressed to include all
requirements and must take advantage of every opportunity to receive
credit where it is appropriate. Assignment to a position on the JDAL is
considered to be a ``standard'' path to earning joint qualifications.
While officers still have the capability to self-nominate based on
their experiences, this hardly seems appropriate if we are serious
about quality joint education. In short, not giving JDAL credit to non-
host military faculty at the JPME I schools will certainly not help the
recruitment, nor retention, of the ``top shelf'' military faculty.
5) If a JPME I level school had billets on the JDAL prior to the
2007 legislation, how many were on the list and by what authority? What
criteria were used to determine these prior JDAL billets?
Prior to 2007, Command and Staff College had two billets on the
JDAL. These were the senior Army and Air Force faculty at the college.
These faculty were responsible for developing and delivering joint
curricula, representing their service, and mastering Marine Corps
specific portions of the curriculum. Since they were immersed in joint
matters, it was appropriate that they were listed on the JDAL.
6) Has the quality of instructors gone down since then?
We have not gone through a complete iteration of moves/personnel
changes (not enough data) to either corroborate or negate the genesis
of this question. Our current non-host Officers are of high quality but
due to their background, we were going to lose three to retirement and
one to Command at the end of the academic year. Not everyone can
achieve Command, but it is our premise that former Commanders make the
best Instructors because they understand leadership and can impart that
earned and learned respect and leadership to their students. The
students know they are listening to someone who has ``been there, done
that''. If we let Officers get joint credit at non-host service
institutions, we satisfy a requirement for them to attain Flag Officer
rank without requiring another tour outside their respective service.
In the Marine Corps, we look at an Officer file and check for
credibility in his own Military Occupational Specialty before we
promote that Officer or send them to school. The effect of not
receiving joint credit as an ``exchange'' instructor is that the
quality of the Officers may (no data as of yet) suffer as there is no
incentive other than wanting to learn more about another service. It is
very important to restore joint credit so we can continue to attract
high quality Officers to our respective programs.
Officers do get joint experience as faculty members of other
service institutions. First they must immerse themselves in other
service culture to learn and then teach in each curriculum. As an
example, one of the first things in our program of instruction is the
Marine Corps Planning Process; it is our baseline. We have Army, Navy
and Air Force Officers teaching that process. The absolutely best way
to learn is to teach. They are also inculcated with our culture
beginning with faculty development in the weeks before the students
arrive. Development included visits to an amphibious ship and a wing to
not just talk about a Marine Air Ground Task Force, but to show a
Marine Air Ground Task Force. The year is truly a joint experience.
7) Are there other ways to encourage services to provide non-host
quality instructors to schools without the need for JDAL billets?
Currently, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among all JPME I
institutions is being finalized to articulate the requirements for non-
host faculty positions. A MOU already exists for JPME II institutions.
While this will help since it provides the baseline qualifications, it
will not define quality for those positions. The best way to encourage
quality faculty serving at JPME I institutions is to ensure they
receive joint credit for their assignment. As discussed earlier, there
is a relatively small window in which officers must accomplish a
multitude of tasks. Making sure they receive joint credit for the
important work of educating future joint leaders is the best way to
encourage quality faculty.
8) If faculty from JPME I are allowed to be on the JDAL, should
they also be required to meet the same requirements to be on the JDAL
or do they need to have different requirements established?
If non-host faculty serving in a teaching billet are on the JDAL,
those billets will require the same scrutiny as all other JDAL billets.
The requirements may be a little different depending on the litmus test
given to the billet. For instance, it should be a teaching billet at a
non-host, PME accredited school. If the non-host member does not teach,
they should not be considered. Once on the JDAL, they will need to be
reviewed within the same review cycle as all other JDAL billets.
Submitted: 17 August 2009
Prepared by Dr. Jerre W. Wilson, Vice President for Academic
Affairs, MCU
Approved by: Col Ray Damm, Director, Command and Staff College
Col Paul O'Leary, Acting President, MCU deg.
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