E4L to bring ease, increased accesibility to e-mail experience

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Eric Schloeffel
  • 23rd Wing Public Affairs
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  The Air Force recently created a new e-mail system designed to follow an Airman or government service civilian throughout their career. 

E-mail for Life, or E4L, will eventually allow people to retrieve e-mails from any common access card accessible computer. Many Airmen have already received test e-mail messages from the Air Force chief of staff mass e-mail distribution system. 

"E4L is basically a Web-based system designed to let you pull up e-mail from any work space - even during deployments," said Staff Sgt. Salvatore Lione, 23rd Communications Squadron network administrator. "All a person will need to do is insert their CAC card and log onto a Web page, and their e-mail will be accessible from that particular location." 

The new e-mail address will include the person's first name followed by a period and then their last name, with the extension @us.af.mil. An extra numerical designation will be added for those who have identical first names based on date of rank at time of issuance. 

With Air Force changes involving recapitalizing and force-shaping, the new system is another way to cut down on man-hours and save money by streamlining e-mail systems, said Capt. Jason Fields, E4L project officer from the Air Force Communications Agency. 

"E4L is the first step in eventually consolidating the 14-plus e-mail and active directory systems into a streamlined architecture," said the captain. "Once that is done, it will reduce costs associated with running multiple implementations at the various locations." 

All e-mail currently sent to an E4L account is automatically forwarded to a user's current Air Force e-mail address. In the future, base-level accounts will completely cease and this practice will likely no longer occur, said Sergeant Lione. 

"There are no set dates out right now, but in a couple years we are looking for E4L to completely replace base-level e-mail," he said. "There will likely be a transition phase where e-mails will continue to be sent to two separate e-mail accounts." 

While still in its infancy, E4L provides a glimpse into the future where retrieving e-mail will be less of a hassle during permanent change of station moves, temporary duty assignments and deployments, said Sergeant Lione. 

"The main benefit for the user is that their e-mail will follow them wherever they go, which will be less of a headache for them and us," said the sergeant. "Many people come back from a deployment with thousands of e-mails on their computer to look through or clean up. I've seen people who delete everything from their folders when they get back; possibly removing some important information." 

Since all incoming E4L e-mails are forwarded to base-level accounts, there is no reason to currently manage the account, said Sergeant Lione. 

For more information on E4L accounts, visit the Air Force Portal - click on the "Air Force" tab - click on the "Enterprise IT Initiatives - and lastly click on the "E-mail for Life" link. 

(Karen Petitt, Air Force Communications Agency, contributed to this story)