Personal Narrative: Cue The Flashback

Cue the Flashback sequence: It was the year 2000, and I was well into my career as a young Private First Class in the military, looking forward to promotion to specialist very shortly. My team chief, Staff Sergeant Bond called me into the office and asked me, “Benjamin, do you have AKO (Army Knowledge Online)?” The acronyms started running through my mind as I scrambled to think of what that could be. Surely I had it, I mean, after all didn’t everybody? After about a minute I decide to own up to it and say, “No Sergeant, I do not. What is it?” It was a pretty new concept and I don’t even think that he entirely grasped what this information system was that the Army has designated everyone must have. It was a way of connecting everyone throughout the United States Army community. SSG Bond placed me in front of a computer in the FIST (Fire Support Team) office, brought up the AKO site (with the “new account screen”), and said “fill this out.” He walked me through it as I created my username, “andrew.george.benjamin,” and that was my first introduction to Army knowledge online. Business Dictionary defines an information system as “a combination of hardware, software, infrastructure, and trained personnel organized to facilitate planning, control, coordination, and decision making in an organization.” …show more content…
For example, if I move to a new duty station, unless I update my personal profile, my unit won’t be reflected and neither will any of my gaining unit information. Some Soldiers who have been at your unit for one month or so, will still have MEPS on their profile. Additionally, the system may go down randomly (as opposed to scheduled maintenance time) with certain features (HRC links such as ORBs, and OERs) and it can be really bothersome with no workaround (delaying personnel when immediate updates, and/or printouts are needed). These features may be down for days at a