News From USJFCOM: Leaders meet to discuss joint training

Leaders meet to discuss joint training

Flag and general officers from U.S. Joint Forces Command and around the Department of Defense recently met at a Fort Leavenworth training summit to discuss developing warfighters who can operate in joint operating environments.

By Bob Kerr
Fort Leavenworth Public Affairs

(FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan - Feb. 28, 2005) --The senior officers in charge of training the U.S. military met recently at Fort Leavenworth to discuss training and developing officers who are capable and comfortable operating in a joint environment.

The Interservice Training Summit, hosted by Army Training and Doctrine Command Commander Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, was attended by the training leaders of the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard.

Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command at Norfolk, Va., was the summit's keynote speaker.

"Our nation's forces will always fight jointly, which means we must train and educate as we fight," Giambastiani said. He added that the services are incorporating jointness into current operations, "but we need to push joint concepts harder."

"Current operations are pulling jointness deeper into your ranks, further into your units and earlier into any of your operations," he said.

The admiral said joint forces are more powerful than any single service, or any interagency or multinational group. He emphasized that joint forces need speed - not just physical speed or precision weapons, but leaders with mental speed and situational awareness.

"Future joint operators must be comfortable with change and innovation," Giambastiani said.

Giambastiani told the other leaders that he believes they face three collective challenges - challenges that no individual military service can resolve on its own.

The first challenge is to provide trained and ready joint task forces to combatant commanders.

Giambastiani said combatant commanders don't have time to train and educate JTFs. And while his command is working with JTFs on the operational level, it is important for the services to emphasize jointness at all levels of training and professional military education.

The next challenge is to institutionalize joint training and education, Giambastiani said. With the National Defense University, JFCOM currently presents the Capstone Joint Operations Module for newly selected flag and general officer, the Pinnacle course for two- and three-star joint task force commanders and the Keystone course for senior enlisted leaders. Giambastiani said the services must institutionalize joint concepts at their levels and embed a common joint context into exercises, experiments and educational settings.

The last challenge Giambastiani outlined was enabling interdependence in all joint operations. The services must practice the relationships of supporting or being supported, he said.

Giambastiani added that the services must ensure components are fully integrated and interoperable across the force; they must establish a culture that is comfortable with change and innovation; and they must produce capabilities that he called "born joint" - interoperable from conception. Finally, he said, the services must leverage their core competencies to maximize the joint experience and education.

The training summit was the second for the armed services.

Also attending the summit were Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commanding general of the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, TRADOC deputy chief of staff for Operations and Training, and Brig. Gen. Volney J. Warner, deputy commandant of the Command and General Staff College.

The other service training chiefs attending included Gen. Donald G. Cook, commanding general of the Air Education and Training Command, Vice Adm.l J.Kevin Moran, commander of the Naval Education and Training Command, Maj. Gen. Thomas S. Jones, commanding general of the Marine Corps Training and Education Command, and Rear Adm. James C. Van Sice, director of Reserve and Training, U.S. Coast Guard.

Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Jon A. Gallinetti, JFCOM director for joint training, J-7, and commander of the Joint Warfighting Center, also attended.