Deployed Airmen get online holiday voice greetings

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. David A. Jablonski
  • Air Force Print News
WASHINGTON --  Deployed Airmen can now receive holiday-season voice greetings from family and friends via the Internet.

Offered through the Air Force Crossroads Web site and the Air Force’s GIMail service, the program allows friends and family members of deployed Airmen to pick up a telephone, dial a toll-free number and send a voice recording via e-mail.

This service is available through Jan. 5.

“This allows many (Airmen) who may not otherwise be able to hear the voices of their loved ones to actually listen to their spouse, children, relatives and friends express their holiday ... wishes,” said Barbara Murray, Air Force force sustainment chief.

To receive the messages, deployed Airmen must have, or sign up for a GIMail account. They enroll for voice mail by clicking on Air Force Holiday Voice Mail links within Air Force Crossroads and entering their GIMail password. At that point, a special code is generated for each enrolling Airman, and an e-mail notice containing the toll-free telephone numbers and the code is sent to the family members and friends they have specified.

To send the messages, people use the code for the specific deployed Airman. After they dial the toll-free number, they provide the code and begin their message.

Toll-free access is available throughout the United States. It is also available in Australia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Panama, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and France.

Once a recording is made, it is sent via GIMail as an attached file. The file can be downloaded for later playback, allowing recipients to hear the messages as many times as they desire.

GIMail, www.afcrossroads.com/communications/index.cfm, is an Air Force e-mail service specially designed to provide reasonable security and light bandwidth impact. It is provided to all Airmen and has been extended to all the Department of Defense. This includes all servicemembers, civil service employees, reservists and guardsmen, retirees and authorized family members. There are currently more than 80,000 registered users.

Air Force Crossroads, www.afcrossroads.com, is the U.S. Air Force’s official community Web site. It features a wide range of military lifestyle information to the entire Air Force family as well as all the component services in the DOD, officials said.