Reserve component prepares for JQS implementation

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. Kelly Mazezka
  • Air Reserve Personnel Center Public Affairs
DENVER --  Revisions to a Defense Department Joint Qualification System instruction, expected out next month, will enable Air Force Reserve officials to establish implementation procedures for Air Reserve Component Airmen.

 "The revision," said Maj. Eric Levesque, Chief, Developmental Education and Joint Officer Management Policy for the Air Force Reserve, "will address how our part-time reserve force will receive credit for their joint experience and education." 

JQS helps identify active and reserve component military personnel who possess the abilities needed to achieve success in the joint and interagency environment. This program allows DoD to better incorporate an officer's joint experiences and qualifications into assignment, promotion and development decisions. 

Previously, only officers who were assigned to a joint duty assignment could become joint qualified, but this criteria changed with the National Defense Authorization Act of 2007. The new Joint Qualification System does not replace the current joint specialty system but supplements it. 

"We have Citizen Airmen in the field who are accomplishing the joint mission and gaining valuable joint experiences," Major Levesque said. "This new system will allow us to capture that experience and get these officers the joint credit they deserve." 

Although the primary method of acquiring joint experience will remain a standard joint duty assignment and completing joint professional military education, JQS also allows point accumulation through a combination of shorter joint assignments, exercises and training. This change makes Reserve component participation more feasible. The experience-based system awards points in tracking the progression through successive qualification levels, while accounting for the intensity, environment, duration and frequency of each joint activity. 

The system encourages officers' career-long development of joint expertise because it recognizes experiences earned from commissioning to retirement. The new system has four levels, and each level includes a combination of factors based on joint education, experience and other criteria. 

Progression through the levels is largely dependent on meeting the definition of "joint matters." Joint matters include duties related to the achievement of unified action by multiple military forces in the areas of national military strategy, strategic and contingency planning, command and control of operations under unified command, national security planning with other departments or agencies, and combined operations with military forces of allied nations. 

The JQS includes a grandfather clause permitting retroactive point credit dating back to Oct. 1, 1986, for Reserve component officers and Sept. 11, 2001, for active-duty officers.