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SF warrant officers have new proponent manager
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Bart Bryant is the new proponent manager for SF warrant officers, MOS 180A. Bryant assumed his new duties within the Special Warfare Center and School’s Directorate of Special Operations Proponency 1 Nov. He was previously assigned to the 3rd SF Group, where he served in numerous positions culminating in his assignment as company operations warrant officer for Company C, 1st Battalion, 3rd SF Group. Bryant can be reached at DSN 239-1879/7597, commercial (910) 432-1879/7597, or by e-mail at bart.bryant@us.army.mil. Chief Warrant Officer 5 Samuel Doyle remains the chief warrant officer of the branch. He can be reached at DSN 239-1879, commercial (910) 432-1879, or by e-mail at: doyles@ahqb.soc.mil.

SF warrant-officer service offers advantages
As growth in the force continues, SF warrant-officer-inventory requirements remain high, and efforts to recruit SF NCOs in the active and reserve components are in full swing. Service as an SF warrant officer offers a number of advantages:
- Serve in a direct, ground, combat-leadership role as the assistant detachment commander of an SF A-detachment.
- Serve an average of five additional years on an A-detachment.
- Lead specialized teams in missions involving advanced special operations, counterterrorism, psychological operations, civil affairs and other operations, as directed.
- Serve in worldwide joint, strategic, operational and tactical assignments, at all levels of special-operations planning and execution.
- Have opportunities to obtain intermediate-level education at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., with the potential to obtain a master’s degree through the Interagency Studies Program.
- Become eligible for a critical-skills accession bonus of $20,000 (active component) or $10,000 (National Guard).

For additional information, visit the Web sites www.usarec.army.mil/hq/warrant or http://www.1800goguard.com/warrantofficer/warrant.html. SF Soldiers can also contact the senior warrant officer in their unit or contact Chief Warrant Officer 3 Bobby Craig in the SWCS Directorate of Special Operations Proponency at DSN 239-7597, commercial (910) 432-7597, or e-mail: craigb@ahqb.soc.mil.

Officers have options for completing ILE
The primary means by which active-duty officers may complete their intermediate-level education, or ILE, and attain certification for military education level 4 and joint professional military education Phase I are:
1. Complete the 10-month resident ILE course at the Army Command and General Staff College, or CGSC, Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
2. Attend sister-service schools:
• Naval Command and Staff College, Newport, R.I.
• Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico, Va.
• Air Command and Staff College, Montgomery, Ala.
3. Complete the CGSC Interagency Fellowship. The CGSC Interagency Fellowship immerses majors and promotable captains of all branches and functional areas within a federal agency for one year to give them a more thorough understanding of the agency’s mission.
4. Attend an approved foreign staff college:
• Argentina (taught in Spanish); one student per year.
• Australia (taught in English); two students per year.
• Belgium (taught in French); one student per year.
• Brazil (taught in Portuguese); one student per year.
• Canada (taught in English); one student per year.
• France (taught in French); two students per year.
• Germany (taught in German); one student per year.
• Ireland (taught in English); one student per year.
• Italy (taught in Italian); one student per year.
• Japan (taught in Japanese); one student per year.
• Kuwait (taught in English); one student per year.
• Spain (taught in Spanish); one student per year.
• Switzerland (taught in German); one student per year.
• Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (taught in Spanish); 12 students per year.

Officers should address specific questions about ILE, sister-service schools, the CGSC Interagency Fellowship or foreign schools to their career manager at the Army Human Resources Command. Requests to attend sister-service schools, the CGSC Interagency Fellowship or foreign schools should be received by the applicant’s career-management branch not later than August of the year prior to the academic year during which the applicant wishes to attend.

ILE Preparatory Course begins at NPS in June
The ILE Preparatory Course, P-950, for students attending the Naval Postgraduate School beginning in the summer of 2010 will be held June 14-25, 2010, at NPS. Officers and warrant officers are expected to attend P-950 prior to beginning NPS, but if they are unable to attend the June session because of an emergency, the next session will be held in December. However, attendance in December will mean that they cannot take any of the Naval Command and Staff courses that are required in order to receive full credit for ILE/Joint Professional Military I.

Deadline approaching for joint-qualification assessment
Joint qualification is an important part of an officer’s professional development, and officers who require a retroactive assessment of their joint qualification have until Sept. 30, 2010, to request it.

Joint qualification is especially important for officers in Army special-operations forces, whose assignments are inherently joint. The joint nature of a position is important when it is being validated for placement on the joint-duty-assignment list or when an officer’s joint experience is being validated.

When officers apply for retroactive joint credit, the Officer Evaluation Report, or OER, is used to substantiate their joint experience or education. It is therefore important for raters to articulate, whenever possible, the joint nature of operations or training in Part V of the OER. Questions to be answered are what the officer did; whether the assignment was related to national-security strategy, strategic and contingency planning, command and control of operations under a unified command, national-security planning with other departments and agencies of the United States, or combined operations with military forces of allied nations. Raters should also indicate whether the assignment involved other U.S. departments and agencies, military forces or agencies of other countries, or nongovernmental persons or entities.

The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 requires officers to have joint education and experience. The Joint Qualification System, or, JQS, provides officers an opportunity to earn joint qualification upon completion of their requisite joint professional military education, or JPME, and a tour of duty in a joint assignment.

There are four levels of joint qualification. Level I is awarded upon completion of an officer’s basic course and joint certification of pre-commissioning courses that provide an introduction to and awareness of joint operations. Officers begin to accrue qualification points following their commissioning via joint experiences, training, exercises and other education.

Level II is awarded upon completion of JPME I, accrual of 18 points (at least 12 of which come from joint experience) and certification by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Level III is awarded upon completion of JPME II or AJPME (reserve-component officers), accrual of 36 points and certification by the Secretary of Defense or his designee. At least 12 joint-experience points must have been accrued since the awarding of Level II. At Level III, an officer is designated as a joint-qualified officer, or JQO. As of Sept. 30, 2008, an active-component officer must be JQO to be appointed to O7.

Level IV (general or flag officers only) is awarded upon completion of the CAPSTONE course, accrual of 60 points and certification by the Secretary of Defense or his designee. It requires at least 24 additional joint-experience points accrued from an assignment in a general- or flag-officer billet in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a combatant-command headquarters, a joint-task-force headquarters or a defense agency.

To request retroactive joint qualification, officers should visit the Web site below: https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/appj/jmis/JQSindex.jsp.

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