Military Community Web Sites in Abundance.

• Author: Kutner, Joshua A.
• Position: Brief Article

Last May, "Point-and-Click" profiled a Web site called Maingate.com, which was designed to make life easier for military nomads who were reassigned and relocated. There, service personnel could search for potential housing opportunities, and they could interact with others in the military community. Unfortunately, the Web site has followed the same path as many other dot-coms and vanished, without much publicity.

Try searching the Web for the Military Relocation and Information Network, which spawned Maingate.com, today, and you'll find that site to be disabled. Go to www.maingate.com, and you'll automatically be redirected to www.afcrossroad.com, or Air Force Crossroads.

This site, tailored to the Air Force community, is one of the latest military transitional tools that have emerged. Others include Miltary.com, which was featured in the September 2000 edition; MilitaryMoves.com, and the Defense Department's official Web site for transitioning service members, called DoD TransPortal, or www.dodtransportal.org. Right now, it is not clear what type of success rate or lifespan that these sites will have, or whether they will become the next Maingate.com.

But nevertheless, sites such as these are cropping up all over, with each of them claiming to be the ultimate cyber hangout for military personnel.

Air Force Crossroads probably is the spiffiest of these sites. This mainly is because the site is not bombarded with advertising promos and links. The site was created and is maintained by Human Resources Development Inc., whose Web developers even created a nifty intro screen that flashes a mission objective.

Thankfully, the intro is optional, so users do not have to sit through it every time they visit.

Once past the intro, users can click on the following portals: Calendar of Events, Casualty & Loss, Communications Center, DoD Installations, Education, Employment, Family Separation & Readiness, Financial Information, Information Resource Center, Leisure Activities, Medical & Dental, Parenting, Relocation, Related Web sites, Spouse Network and Teens & Youth.

The site attempts to offer guidance for practically everything involved in ensuring that a military relocation goes smoothly. And though it mostly caters to the Air Force, it provides details about military installations throughout the entire Defense Department. Information about these installations is updated daily. The Web site also recently opened some Air Force chat rooms.

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