Usually seeing a group of E-6 and E-7s coming your way strikes fear into young enlisted member, but in this case the group of joint enlisted leaders are here to learn.
Enlisted leaders from across Okinawa joined forces for a week-long joint professional military education experience to learn the mission of their fellow service members.
“I think being on Okinawa we have such a unique opportunity to have all of the services here, so being able to expose our members to each of the services and bringing them together to see how we work together collectively is essential to performing the bigger mission,” said Chief Master Sgt. Kristina Rogers, 18th Wing Erwin Professional Military Education Center commandant. “You don’t always get that opportunity so we were able to capitalize it here. I think it’s been a phenomenal experience for our students.”
On the first day, students received a lesson on the overall strategic mission and importance of Okinawa. The senior enlisted leaders from across the island gave a briefing about the joint mission and the emphasis on working together.
The following days, the class received the opportunity to tour each branch’s military instillations.
“The students participate in activities representing all of our branches of service on island,” said Rogers. “They get the opportunity to experience what it’s like to serve as a sailor, as a soldier, as an Airman and as a Marine.”
These five days of travelling and learning together gave each member a better appreciation of their fellow service member.
“Being able to inter-mingle with the other enlisted leaders and to get their personal experience built that comradery amongst each other,” said U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Billy Pickard, 1-1 Air Defense Artillery Battalion platoon leader. “So being able to network and building that rapport is the best thing I can take from this.”
Even though every service may have a different language and may approach things differently, at the end of the day we all have the same mission of peace in the Pacific, explained Rogers.
“The relationships we build between the services and our students is everlasting,” said Rogers. “We need each other and collectively, we are all the same team.”
After this JPME experience, enlisted leaders from all services can take the knowledge they gained and the networks they built back to their units.
“I can take back a basic understanding of how the other branches work and how we can better work together,” said Pickard. “We work a lot with the Air Force and the Navy so having a better understanding of their structure and how they work on a daily basis will help us work with our joint partners.”
The idea of one team, one fight is especially true here, with every branch doing their specific job but ultimately working toward the same goal of peace in the Pacific.
“I think the biggest takeback is that collectively no service does it alone,” said Rogers. “We need each other and we need to understand the other services’ capabilities and missions and how those affect the overall strategic mission here.”