Changes Coming To Enlisted Joint Professional Military Education
Change is coming to enlisted professional military education ensuring the new realities of strategic competition are addressed and emphasizing joint education, the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman Ramón "CZ" Colón-López said.
(Photo Credit : Air Force Master Sgt. Michael Cowley, DOD)
Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman Ramón "CZ" Colón-López briefs the department’s senior noncommissioned officers on the new publication "Developing Enlisted Leaders for Tomorrow's Wars” during a meeting in the Pentagon.
Colón-López and the other senior enlisted leaders have issued "Developing Enlisted Leaders for Tomorrow's Wars" – an in depth look at the vision they have for professional military education.
"So, we started looking at the Keystone course," he said. Keystone is the top-level enlisted PME course. "In the process of looking at Keystone, we identified a gap: That is, that while the services get a little bit of joint education for enlisted throughout their PME, it's not enough."
They devised a course that Colón-López calls "Keystone-minus" to bridge that gap. Aimed at E-6 and E-7s, it is a two-week, in-residence joint professional military education course. "It will cover everything from the way that laws are made to the way that budgets are passed to the way that the orders come down from the civilian leadership to the joint force," he said. "It also will cover the ways the services support the combatant commands and how they execute orders. So, that's really what the course is going to go ahead and cover."
There will be two Gateway classes per year, and they will be held at the National Defense University at Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington D.C.
Tied to it is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff publication “Enlisted Professional Military Education.” Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Kristofer Reyes, the manager for enlisted joint professional military education on the Joint Staff, worked with Colón-López to see the project to fruition.
The idea of "joint" has grown over the years. In the 1960s, it meant two or more services worked together – mostly at the senior levels.
(Photo Credit : Air Force Master Sgt. Michael Cowley, DOD)
Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman Ramón "CZ" Colón-López discusses the future of enlisted professional military education with the Defense Department’s senior enlisted advisors.
20 years of counterinsurgency operations
Enlisted professional military education emphasized the counterterrorism fight had to change as the force confronts the strategic challenges arising.
Counterinsurgency efforts will still be a part of PME courses. Colón-López said the threats from terrorism haven't disappeared, but the courses will be broader.
"What we owe the chairman, the joint chiefs and the Department of Defense are the best educated, knowledgeable and action-oriented NCOs and POs," Colón-López said. "If we are not doing that, we're not going to be any better than any other military out there in the world."