FORD ISLAND, Hawaii – Thursday, eighteen staff officers from U.S. Pacific Command and its Hawaii-based subordinate commands graduated from the first U.S. Pacific Command satellite course for Joint Professional Military Education Phase II (JPME II), a key requirement to becoming a joint-qualified officer (JQO) in the U.S. military.

The Joint and Combined Warfighting School, Class 17-01, satellite Seminar 27 cohort included six U.S. Air Force officers, six U.S. Army officers, five U.S. Naval officers, and 1 U.S. Marine Corps officer ranged in pay grade from O-4 to O-6. This course represented a time investment of 10 weeks away from their parent commands, U.S. Pacific Command, Joint Interagency Task Force West (JIATF-West), Special Operations Command Pacific (SOCPAC), and the Joint Intelligence Operations Center (JIOC).

The seminar began on Jan. 9 with an academic baseline studying fundamentals of unified action before transitioning to a wide variety of scenario-based planning practical applications, including theater campaign planning, contingency planning, and crisis action planning. Scenarios included fictitious regional conflicts between sovereign states, counter-terrorism, and disaster response in complex emergencies.

As part of the curriculum, teams of three students wrote academic papers on various subjects that impact the joint officer. Two of the team papers were selected for special recognition, with one team winning the Joint Force Staff College (JFSC) Commandant’s Distinguished Writing Award and one team winning the Foreign Area Officer's Association Award.

“It is highly unusual for a single seminar to win multiple writing awards,” said Lt. Col. Bo Stuart, U.S. Army, the lead instructor for JPME II Seminar 27. “I am proud of the outstanding efforts of this cohort in aggressively pursuing and participating in the course requirements throughout the seminar.”

The seminar instructors, representing the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Navy (retired), traveled from Norfolk, Virginia, to lead the training and discussion over the 10-week course. “The satellite course model for joint professional military education is an excellent opportunity for students to achieve a key professional development milestone while remaining at their assigned duty station,” said U.S. Pacific Command Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Kevin B. Schneider, U.S. Air Force. “The efficiency of sending three instructors to Hawaii rather than sending 18 students to Norfolk speaks for itself, and I believe it is a viable model for future joint training. I fully support future opportunities for U.S. Pacific Command to host a JPME II satellite course.”

The 18 students were competitively selected and represented a wide variety of subject matter expertise from across the joint staffs, to include operations, intelligence, plans, logistics, human resources, cyber operations, outreach, exercises, missile defense, cryptology, assessments, executive directorate and public affairs. The past 10 weeks delivered 275 hours of instruction, nearly 150 hours of individual study were completed and more than 25 hours of acculturation activities brought participants to Wheeler Army Airfield, Hickam Airfield, Pearl Harbor and Kaneohe Bay.

“Spreading the academic expertise of the course experience across the joint directorates of the staffs will benefit our staff as a whole,” said Schneider. “These students will return to their directorates better equipped to accomplish U.S. Pacific Command’s joint warfighting mission.”