Writing a Date field to an externally described file

I have a Date field described in a program as:
D DTEOFHIRE S D INZ DatFmt(*USA)

In the compile it shows it created as:
DTEOFHIRE D(10*USA/)

In the output it is described as:
O DTEOFHIRE D
NOTE: I've tried it with and without the edit code of D
In the externally described file it is:
A DTEOFHIRE L TEXT('Employment Date')
A COLHDG('Employment' +
A 'Date' )

When I compile the program I get this error:
*RNF7606 20 2000004 The Data-Format entry is A or N but field DTEOFHIRE is
not of type character or indicator.

Does anyone have any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

Running V5R3

Thank you,

Gary