Since the Army closed all retiree's AKO accounts in 2014... what do you think of this loss of benefit?
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>
It will hurt the veteran retiree community the most as we will lose those connections and networks that we have built, and also the information pipeline that many need for long distance from any brick and mortar installations for assistance.
I have already forwarded all my messages from my email folders, but will hope for a better way in the near future. Although this is a extremely small cost to the overall defense budget it is claimed that it will have a effect on helping cut costs, really something that probably take about 0.001% of the money from the budget will help cut costs, get real.
From what I understand about officers in the retired reserves, you are still an officer. That being said. I know this for fact when i was in the navy reserves we had a an officer who trained with us. He said that as long as he was with us (2 weeks) he was able to train with us..
Sincerely retired SSG King AANG
This is a pretty sizeable breach of trust in my opinion. Most of my military affiliated correspondence goes through my AKO account as well as years worth of messages sent and received. Worth mentioning also is that this is one of the few ways I can track down old members of my units and help with others questions... "hey SGT Orr, do you have a copy of that unit award from back in '96" or "I need a copy of the deployment order from Kosovo".
I find it hard to believe that cutting this benefit will save any real money at all. This leads me to question the purpose of deleting all of these accounts?
Thanks for the heads up Chief.
your name rings a bell with me. were you in TaJi Iraq around 2003-2005 the reason I'm asking is because there was a funeral held there in Talil Iraq around that time frame amd a Soldier I think his name was Orr was on the list of those soldiers that were missing or killed. were you related. SSg King
There is only one way to get a .mil account - through service; it's instant credibility.
MSG Hawkins, where did you get information about a [login to see] email address? This is also the first time I've heard of this, and I work with some people at Enterprise Email. How will you access this email account without a CAC? Current CAC carrying members of the Army have their AKO email addresses forwarding to their [login to see] accounts. The username and password option is still alive and well (despite hardly anyone remembering their password). I have as much information as I can find for retiring personnel located on http://militarycac.com/retiring.htm
That aside, I agree with everyone that taking away the .MIL email is a bad move. People have years and years of contacts stored there.