page 6 of this document<\/a>.<\/p>\nInactive retiree\/dependent accounts (no password change in the last 90 days) get the axe at the end of the year.\u00a0 Current accounts (those who\u2019ve had a password change within the past 90 days) will get the axe on 31 March 2014.\u00a0 Further details are in the linked article.<\/p>\n
Yeah, in the “great scheme of things” it\u2019s a small thing.\u00a0 And yeah, supposedly they\u2019ll forward mail to a civilian e-mail account of your choice until the end of 2014 to \u201cease the transition.\u201d\u00a0 You’ve got to the end of this year to set that up.<\/p>\n
The stated reasons for doing this?\u00a0 Security and budget.<\/p>\n
Still:\u00a0 regardless of the reason, or how good the reasons are – it\u2019s yet another freaking broken promise.<\/p>\n
When AKO was first instituted, it was announced \u2013 publicly \u2013 as both an official e-mail account and a permanent e-mail address that \u201cyou’ll keep for your career – and even after retirement\u201d.\u00a0 Having an AKO account soon became mandatory<\/span>.\u00a0 I personally remember both the early AKO rollout, and when having an account became mandatory – to include for members of the USAR and ARNG.\u00a0 Hell, I was a fairly early subscriber in the USAR.<\/p>\nIn retrospect, I guess this really shouldn\u2019t be a surprise.\u00a0 Ask anyone who retired in the 1960s or 1970s how DoD handled that promise of \u201clifetime medical care for you and your family as a military retiree\u201d it made to everyone joining the service in the 1940s and 1950s.\u00a0 They all got royally screwed in the 1960s when DoD rolled out TRICARE (then called CHAMPUS).\u00a0\u00a0 On top of the increased costs under CHAMPUS\/TRICARE, for a long time (1967-2001, to be precise) they were also booted from CHAMPUS\/TRICARE just as soon as they became Medicare-eligible.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t get fixed until Congress passed the \u201cTRICARE-for-Life\u201d statue in 2001.\u00a0 And that only fixed part of the issue.<\/p>\n
Hell, any of us can probably think of at least a handful of promises (implied or expressed) on which DoD has reneged over the years. This latest with AKO is just yet another example among many.<\/p>\n
But it still p!sses me off.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because this is being done simply because it\u2019s convenient.\u00a0 In terms of the Army\u2019s budget it will only save a pittance.\u00a0 Apparently it\u2019s just \u201ctoo hard\u201d to keep their word by finding the money to issue retirees a secure ID card (CAC) on request and to pay DISA to continue e-mail service for retirees (the Army is transitioning to DISA-provided enterprise e-mail and phasing out its own e-mail systems, which is IMO likely a big part of the reason the change is happening now).<\/p>\n
So instead of keeping its word, yet another DoD promise from past years goes out the window.<\/p>\n
However, DoD can still find the money to fund overpriced, badly-designed pipe-dreams that will never work as advertised (see the F-35).\u00a0 As well as 680 or so craptastic \u201cgreen energy\u201d projects, virtually all of which have little-to-no military utility and which waste dollars.\u00a0 We throw out good, experienced troops who have one too many tattoos \u2013 thus flushing all the money we\u2019ve spent to train them \u2013 and reject otherwise excellent recruits for the same reason. \u00a0We can find the dollars to fund \u201cgender equality\u201d surveys regarding the integration of women into combat specialties, or run pilot training programs to tell us things we already know.\u00a0 And . . . well, I guess I should shut up now.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have all day to continue writing this paragraph alone.<\/p>\n
Hell, maybe it’s just me.\u00a0 Keeping my word is worth a bit more to me than avoiding a minor inconvenience; to me, keeping my word is important.\u00a0 Apparently Big Army\u2019s word is worth less and it\u2019s priorities are different.<\/p>\n
Shame on you, Big Army.\u00a0 Shame.<\/p>\n
The really sad part?\u00a0\u00a0 Broken promises like this, from the Army and DoD, are really no surprise any more.\u00a0 They now seem to be more-or-less “business as usual”.<\/p>\n
Just remember, HQDA:<\/p>\n
. . . . Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool — you bet that Tommy sees!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nSo does GI Joe.\u00a0 As well as the guys and gals thinking about heading down to the Recruiter’s office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I wrote this article mainly because I\u2019m p!ssed, and I\u2019m venting.\u00a0 It\u2019s geared toward Army personnel … Yet Another Broken Promise. Gee Thanks, HQDA.<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-army","category-defense-cuts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}