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Connecting The Army

Lisa Beth Snyder

10/01/2000

The key to staying connected to the Army during and after your time in service is your computer. With a modem or network connection, keyboard and mouse, you are only a few keystrokes away from a wealth of Army information.

Besides the Army Knowledge Online website, a quick search of the web reveals more than a dozen .com or .net sites specifically designed to meet the needs of American soldiers, veterans, military families and civilian workers. And there are thousands more that offer such specialized information as campaign or unit histories.

Many of these sites are run by current or former military members or veterans organizations.

MAJ Nate Allen and MAJ Tony Burgess, U.S. Military Academy classmates and current staff members, have spent a lot of time talking about company command.

Burgess said that they thought, "Wouldn't it be great if company
commanders around the world could easily share their ideas and
experiences?"

They realized that the Internet was the medium for this forum, said Allen, who is currently attending graduate school. The two joined six other West Point staff and faculty members to operate CompanyCommand.com, which allows for real peer sharing of ideas laterally instead of the usual top down hierarchy, said Allen.

The chief executive officer of Military.com, Chris Michel, is a Navy Reserve officer. He was at a naval air station when fellow aviators were lamenting the fact that they couldn't stay connected. He quit his civilian job and developed the website. bringing on board other military members such as retired Army public affairs officer Michael Doble, the company's director of corporate communication.

SSG Don Oliver, one of the creators of GISearch.com, is still on active duty at Fort Jackson, S.C. Oliver said the idea for a free site for old service buddies to find each other came up when talking about old friends with his neighbor, retired NCO Ed McWhirter.

During an Internet search they found sites that either charged a fee or were just lists with no search features, Oliver said.

"If thousands of people went to the trouble of posting unordered, hard-to-find messages, we were sure many more would appreciate the chance to put their information in a comprehensive, searchable system," he said.

Oliver and McWhirter had their site set up like a convention center with meeting rooms, so people can have a neutral place to meet without giving out too much private information. Members register their names and duty stations in searchable databases.

Most of the listed sites are portals with free e-mail, people searches, news, military history and, of course, advertising for military-related products.

Military.com also offers original content and solution-oriented feature packages that have a mixture of original content and links to sites with more information, Doble said. It also has the first .com-only reporter to be accredited by the Department of Defense.

Military.com also has links to other civilian media sources through investments by Arts & Entertainment Television Networks (A&E, History Channel and Biography Channel) and Primedia, which publishes magazines such as Military History.

Other sites, such as Virtual Battalion Headquarters (vbnhq.com) and Army HQ (armyhq.com) focus on soldiers only. Virtual Battalion focuses on soldiers' careers and features a site devoted to noncommissioned officers, while Army HQ includes sites on home and off-duty life.

Militarycity.com is owned by Army Times Publishing Company, and ties in with and expands on that publication's content.

For Department of the Army civilians, MyGovClub.com and PlanetGov.com offer news and tools to manage their careers.

Retirees, veterans and family members can find help with their job search on sites tailored to them, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars' VetJobs.com and Transition Assistance Online (taonline.com), which works with Yahoo! Careers to use its job-search tools.

Stripes.com offers veterans news and history, and military spouse news. Other news for Army spouses can be found at armyspouse.com or the online version of Off Duty magazine, Offduty.com.

For the whole family, maingate.com, which bills itself as the online network for military communities, has sections for military news, installation guides, teens, kids and veterans.

When its time for a break from being a technologically proficient,
well-informed fighter, these sites may help you plan your off-duty time.

Now soldiers no longer need to lament the difficulty of keeping in
touch. With the Internet, the information an Army family needs is just a click away.

Related Sites

The following sites were reviewed for the story "Connecting the Army." These sites are not endorsed by the Department of the Army or Soldiers magazine.

The sites were selected through a web search and from press releases. All listed addresses begin with http://.

www.armyhq.com

www.companycommand.com

www.military-network.com

www.offduty.com

www.stripes.com

www.totalforceonline.com

www.VetJobs.com

Useful Websites

Most Army and military sites can be accessed by going to the Army Homepage, the PERSCOM homepage or DefenseLink, and clicking on the appropriate icon. This list contains home pages for major subjects and useful sites that can be difficult to find from common military homepages.

All site addresses begin with http://.

Department of Defense: DefenseLink

www.defenselink.mil

Joint Chiefs of Staff:

www.dtic.mil/jcs/

The Pentagon:

www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pentagon/

Defense Finance and Accounting Service:

www.dfas.mil

Military Funerals:

www.militaryfuneralhonors.osd.mil/

General Army Information: The U.S. Army Homepage

www.army.mil