News From USJFCOM: Joint Deployment Training Center revs up for the future


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Joint Forces collage Joint Deployment Training Center revs up for the future

U.S. Joint Forces Command’s Joint Deployment Training Center, based at Ft. Eustis, Va., has extended its reach to prepare joint warfighters for duties around the globe by developing a virtual campus and increasing training opportunities.

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By Spc. Andrew Orillion
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(FT. EUSTIS, Va. – Jan. 30, 2007) – U.S. Joint Forces Command’s (USJFCOM) deployment system training professionals have some exciting developments on the horizon according to one of the command’s senior leaders.

USJFCOM’s Joint Deployment Training Center (JDTC), based at Fort Eustis, Va., has begun the process of rolling out new courses and ways of training designed to support the many missions operators face said JDTC director Army Col. Sharon H. Baker.

JDTC trains the planners and operators who work in the many Defense Department systems that facilitate the joint deployment of forces and support commanders in operations around the world. The center prepares personnel for joint deployments and teach the proper operation of the many approved systems that fall under the umbrella of the Global Command and Control System - Joint (GCCS-J).

“We cover the joint individual training that feeds into the bigger, broader training that needs to be done. We are the basic building block to train individuals,” said Baker.

JDTC focuses on two areas, joint deployment planning and execution and situational awareness training. The joint deployment planning training prepares logisticians and planners who are involved in the joint deployment process, said Baker.

Situational awareness training is for operators at a command post or an operations center, Baker added. This training includes working with common operational picture (COP) and integrated imagery and intelligence programs.

Lessons from operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom point to the need for more timely and focused training on these critical command and control systems. JDTC has been tasked to address these issues and is proceeding on multiple fronts: provide more training, better training, and better identification of who has and who needs to be trained.

To improve the training for both areas, JDTC will introduce a virtual campus and put a great emphasis on university–like, online secure classes to support combatant commands (COCOMs) and the individual services that provide troops and equipment to joint task forces around the world.

“One of our challenges has always been to make sure that we are training the right people,” said Baker. “What we try to do to mitigate this is to provide various options for COCOMs and services to send people to training so it’s easy for people to come.”

Baker said that the accelerated pace troops go through to prepare to support current operations can make this difficult for soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to leave their home station for traditional classroom training.

Using a virtual campus and online training will provide an effective and cost-efficient training option.

Students will access the virtual campus using a computer on a classified network and have to be much more interactive than in traditional online training said Baker.

Instead of simply reviewing course material online, students will work directly with their instructor and fellow students to complete the course.

“These students will be required, as part of this process, to participate in newsgroups and interact with the other students,” said Baker. “They will also have to complete tasks as they would in a classroom.”

“This is an initiative that basically just started so we are in the early stages of it, but it looks very promising,” Baker added.

The virtual campus initiative is just one aspect of JDTC’s increased training capability. JDTC will soon be adding new courseware. The center offers interactive online courses in basic Joint Operation Planning and Execution System and a COP management program to aid COP operators in the field.

Baker said the COP management course prepares warfighters to take on the job of a COP manager, ensuring the individual COP operators work within a set of COCOM-defined policies and procedures to maintain the flow of information.

In addition to the virtual campus and new courseware, JDTC will expand its mobile training capability in support of COCOMs, services and DoD agencies, taking the training to the operators, while helping to improve and standardize remote training sites.

According to the colonel, JDTC personnel are currently going out and taking surveys and talking with COCOMs to help them improve their GCCS-J mobile training team sites.

Finally, JDTC is cooperating with other activities within and outside USJFCOM to get a better fix on who needs the training they provide, and who has already had it.

“Warfighters need confidence not only in the command and control systems themselves, but in the ability of their people getting the most out of them,” said Baker.