§ 663. Joint duty assignments after completion of joint professional military education

• (a) The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that each officer designated as a joint qualified officer who graduates from a school within the National Defense University specified in subsection (c) shall be assigned to a joint duty assignment for that officer’s next duty assignment after such graduation (unless the officer receives a waiver of that requirement by the Secretary in an individual case).
• (b)
  • (1) The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that a high proportion (which shall be greater than 50 percent) of the officers graduating from a school within the National Defense University specified in subsection (c) who are not designated as a joint qualified officer shall receive assignments to a joint duty assignment (or, as authorized by the Secretary in an individual case, to a joint assignment other than a joint duty assignment) as their next duty assignment after such graduation or, to the extent authorized in paragraph (2), as their second duty assignment after such graduation.
  • (2) The Secretary may, if the Secretary determines that it is necessary to do so for the efficient management of officer personnel, establish procedures to allow up to one-half of the officers subject to the assignment requirement in paragraph (1) to be assigned to such an assignment as their second (rather than first) assignment after such graduation from a school referred to in paragraph (1).
• (c) For purposes of this section, a school within the National Defense University specified in this subsection is one of the following:
  • (1) The National War College.
  • (2) The Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy.
  • (3) The Joint Forces Staff College.
• (d)
  • (1) Subsection (a) does not apply to an officer graduating from a school within the National Defense University specified in subsection (c) following pursuit of a program on an other-than-in-residence basis.
  • (2) Subsection (b) does not apply with respect to any group of officers graduating from a school within the National Defense University specified in subsection (c) following pursuit of a program on an other-than-in-residence basis.