Posted on Nov 5, 2013
Since the Army closed all retiree's AKO accounts in 2014... what do you think of this loss of benefit?
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<p class="MsoPlainText">The U.S. Army will close all retirees' and family
members' AKO accounts between Dec. 31, 2013 and Mar. 31, 2014. Additionally, you can no longer store email
in AKO after Dec. 31, 2013.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p><br></o:p></p><p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p>When AKO accounts were created back in the Late 90's they were promised to retirees for life. What do you think about this loss of benefits?</o:p></p>
members' AKO accounts between Dec. 31, 2013 and Mar. 31, 2014. Additionally, you can no longer store email
in AKO after Dec. 31, 2013.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p><br></o:p></p><p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p>When AKO accounts were created back in the Late 90's they were promised to retirees for life. What do you think about this loss of benefits?</o:p></p>
Benefits
Retirement
Army
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 27
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http://www.ftgordonsignal.com/news/2013-10-18/Community_Events/Army_to_close_retiree_AKO_accounts_in_2014.html
On Sept. 20, the Army published its plan to modernize Army Knowledge Online. The plan transitions business users to a suite of more secure, interoperable Department of Defense services.
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I thought you the (Army) said we are soldiers for life ...???
So, now we are second army soldiers citizen.. well done.. have the rest of the day Off
So, now we are second army soldiers citizen.. well done.. have the rest of the day Off
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A short sighted decision for several reasons:
- Mentoring. AKO for retirees made it easier for currently serving Soldiers to contact and leverage retiree experiences and advice.
- Recruiting. Regardless of the millions of dollars spent on recruiting, the most effective recruiting tool is word of mouth by Soldiers who previously served. An AKO account for retirees would help this effort.
- Reunions. Easier to find former Soldiers for unit reunions if all retirees were on one email system. Relates to current Soldier in that unit reunions are a great way to build current unit esprit de corps and to connect past Soldiers with current Soldiers. Can also help current Soldiers better appreciate what they have right now if they are able to get a glimpse into the future of what they will become.
- Keep promise. I don't recall AKO accounts being promsied to retirees for life in the 1990s but that is something that I was not focused on in the 1990s. If promised then it should be kept.
- I am sure there are other reasons that RP members can think up but my assumption is that decision makers looked at this from a tangible cost savings perspective without potential consideration of the intangible benefit perspectives.
- Mentoring. AKO for retirees made it easier for currently serving Soldiers to contact and leverage retiree experiences and advice.
- Recruiting. Regardless of the millions of dollars spent on recruiting, the most effective recruiting tool is word of mouth by Soldiers who previously served. An AKO account for retirees would help this effort.
- Reunions. Easier to find former Soldiers for unit reunions if all retirees were on one email system. Relates to current Soldier in that unit reunions are a great way to build current unit esprit de corps and to connect past Soldiers with current Soldiers. Can also help current Soldiers better appreciate what they have right now if they are able to get a glimpse into the future of what they will become.
- Keep promise. I don't recall AKO accounts being promsied to retirees for life in the 1990s but that is something that I was not focused on in the 1990s. If promised then it should be kept.
- I am sure there are other reasons that RP members can think up but my assumption is that decision makers looked at this from a tangible cost savings perspective without potential consideration of the intangible benefit perspectives.
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SFC STALEY help me with this i'm a snail i'm very slowwww,what does the army expect us to do about getting into deers and other links that ako provided us?????
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I was surprised that there was such a thing in the first place. Navy never game me an E-Mail account when I retired.
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SFC Charles S.
The .Mil domain is a Federally managed domain and can be used to verify affiliation with the Army. You had to be in to get one. So for Rally point it used the .mil domain to verify the account. Other services when you retired use the same verification like the usajobs.gov jobs website. These are important verifications that would be taken away if you no longer have a .mil e-mail. It's much quicker than faxing a DD-214 to a potential employer.
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SSG Maurice P.
People help me here i'm uneducated but when O leaves office can we as retiree's seek to lobby to get it back or is there another way i'm not tracking on how we can restore AKO
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This entire decision was from the Secretary of the Army bullet point 1.
In this time of constrained resources, the Army must leverage new technology and
business processes to improve critical mission operations and functions and set the
information foundation of Army 2020. Among the most visible of these initiatives is the
Army's adoption of the Department of Defense's Enterprise Email service. To achieve
the anticipated financial economies, efficiencies and security improvements, the Army
must modernize current Army Knowledge Online (AKO) infrastructure and services to
become more interoperable across DoD, compliant with emerging Joint Information
Environment architectures and implement current best practices for cloud-based
managed services.
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CW3 Michael Danberry
While I agree with what was stated above, how much does hard drive space cost these days? Do you really think that saving that whopping 100 MB of space per retiree is going to save millions of dollars?
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SFC Charles S.
Exactly... it won't. I'm not sure what made the Secretary of the Army decide this was a huge savings to the force.
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CW2 Jacob Bender
SFC Charles S. - They're saving less than a nickel per person. I mean...c'mon. It's a nickel. BIIIIIIIG savings...
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Ha Ha I just realized this was done! I lost contact information and all kinds of somewhat valuable information i would have printed out for history sake and memories. I just got tired of resetting those stoopid passwords all the time.
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I didn't like it at all. Having a .mil email address gave me a sense of still belonging to the family that I gave 20 years to. I'm sure "they" had their reasons for deleting retirees' accounts, but would hate for the rationale to be "to save money." If nothing else, the .mil email address was useful when logging into DFAS.
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CW2 Jacob Bender
Seems like they're worried more about what we'd say from a .mil than saving any money.
A nickel per person, dude. And that was what they saved at the time. Now it's more like $0.0385. Big money. They could have offered us the option of paying for it before this stupid crap.
We're old. And brain damaged. Can't be representing Uncle Sam anymore...
A nickel per person, dude. And that was what they saved at the time. Now it's more like $0.0385. Big money. They could have offered us the option of paying for it before this stupid crap.
We're old. And brain damaged. Can't be representing Uncle Sam anymore...
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