Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Your Time: Get some joint training!

So you've got time at work, what can you do that's halfway useful?

Get some joint discretionary points! (and learn something in the process)

First, go here: http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/officer/Detailing/jointofficer/Pages/JQSE-JDADiscretionaryPoints.aspx

You'll notice links to Approved Joint Training and Education. The discussion of the whole joint qualification system will take up another post. For now, you can go to the latest training and find all the distance learning courses that count for discretionary points.

Or, I can do it for you:
NGB: Joint Domestic Operations Course (JDOC)
JACI: J3OP-US112 Joint Fires Observer Familiarization Course
SOCJFCOM: J3ST-US026 Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF) Course
JID: J3OP-US109 Link 16 Joint Interoperability Course
OSD P&R: J3OP-US257 Emergency Preparedness Response Course (EPRC): Clinician Long Course
OSD P&R: J3OP-US259 Emergency Preparedness Response Course (EPRC): Clinician Long Course

All of these except the first one are offered through Joint Knowledge Online. If you already have a CAC reader installed, you can do the courses at home. Or, even better, instead of wasting time on Facebook on the NIPRnet, you can do these courses instead.

After logging into JKO, you'll click on the courses tab on the top left, then you can scroll or enter the course name and click enroll. Some of these courses are lengthy (the Link 16 course took me a week to do!), but they all teach you something, which is nice.

After you're done, save the certificate as a PDF file. Then, fill out the Discretionary Points Worksheet (also located at the original link). Then email it to the JQS manager (for active duty his email is AC_JQS_Manager@navy.mil). He'll update your records, and you should see it on your record in about a week (you can view your joint record here).

Simple enough! You'll learn something, get credit for it, and actually use your time at work wisely.