U.S. Joint Forces Command seeks officers for special duty

29 Jan 2007 | Robert Pursell

U.S. Joint Forces Command is seeking 240 qualified officers from the different reserve components to join its Standing Joint Force Headquarters Core Element here.

These drilling reservists train and must be available for possible deployment within 72 hours in support of global contingencies. Each one belongs to a specific deployment team and is on-call to deploy during a pre-defined period of the year. These established "alert windows" provide an aspect of predictability for the officers.

They participate in unit training activities that support the daily standing joint force headquarters mission throughout the year. They are integrated into both SJFHQ Core Elements Alpha and Bravo, and assigned to billets encompassing a variety of skills and pay grades.

"This is a unique opportunity for the directorate to work with reservists, especially when it comes to leveraging some of their civilian skills," said Navy Capt. Craig Petersen, SJFHQ Core Element Bravo deputy chief of staff. "We feel that there is an opportunity to bring some reservists in that may have skill sets beyond the typical full-time, active-duty service member, and enable them to be fully productive members of the team.

"The benefit for us is that we need those reservists to round out the team and perhaps provide differing perspectives, which may be useful when developing an effects-based approach to how we conduct joint operations," he said.

Captain Petersen explained that the SJFHQ is looking for experienced reservists who are comfortable working at a high tempo operational level of warfare and who are flexible and prepared to rapidly deploy. He said joint experience is helpful but essential for the assignment.

"Hopefully, they've had command experience," Captain Petersen said. "They need to be the resident expert in their own field and they also need to fully understand the joint environment because when USJFCOM's SJFHQ deploys, the members are expected to know the joint planning process cold."

Captain Petersen said this is the 'perfect" assignment for people who enjoy mission planning and using the skills they learned in joint professional military education, especially contingency and crisis action planning at the operational level.

"Professionally, we believe this will be a springboard for jobs of increasing responsibility down the road," he said. "If you look at some of the folks who have worked here, not only active duty but reserve, they've gone on to some pretty incredible jobs after leaving here."

Reservists in Core Element Alpha or Bravo help support transition of service headquarters to joint task force headquarters around the globe. A core element consists of command and control experts to integrate air, land, maritime, information operations and interagency cooperation in a joint task force headquarters.

Once a joint task force headquarters is well-established, the core element redeploys to prepare for the next contingency. In the past, U.S. Joint Forces Command's SJFHQ Core Elements have gone to Iraq, Pakistan, the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan and Lebanon, as well as Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

To learn specific requirements for each service, reservists can send an e-mail to http://www.jwfc.jfcom.mil/webapps/forms/USJFCOM/feedback.jsp . (Air Force Reserve Command News Service from a USJFCOM news release)