AKO Communities secure access to 600+ Soldier monographs offering lessons learned, training from OEF, OIF

By Eric ZedalisMay 27, 2020

FORT BENNING, Ga. - “It must not be forgotten that the true use of history, military or civil…is not to make men clever for the next time; it is to make them wiser forever.”

British military historian Sir Michael Howard wrote this passage to a generation of officers in 1961.

To put in perspective what he meant, not every lesson from World War I or Vietnam would be relevant to the challenges modern maneuver leaders will face in combat.

But what can and should always resonate with future maneuver leaders, especially as our nation just commemorated its most solemn day of remembrance - Memorial Day - are lasting examples, often paid for in the blood of our Soldiers, of how our Army adapted in every conflict to changes in technology, environment, and a long list of determined and creative enemies.

With that in mind, the Maneuver Center of Excellence Headquarters Donovan Research Library provides Infantry and Armor leaders with a repository of historical information.  The library is currently expanding its virtual offering.

“Our Virtual Branch consists of access to databases, links to other institutions, and open source digitized materials of historical documents, personal experience Student Papers beginning with World War I, and historical newspapers utilized by customers, students, Soldiers, instructors and historians at the MCoE and worldwide,” said Senior Reference/Systems Librarian at the G3 Library Division, MCoE HQ Donovan Research Library, Ms. Genoa Stanford.

The Donovan Research Library first originated in 1907 when General Arthur MacArthur, father of General Douglas MacArthur, donated 20 books to establish a library for the School of Musketry at the Presidio of Monterey, in Monterey, Calif. The Musketry Library was later relocated from California to Fort Sill, Okla. and became the Infantry School of Arms Library. But by October 1918, with a small collection of 1,725 books, the Infantry Library finally relocated to Fort Benning, Ga. Then in 1980, the name of the library was changed to Donovan Technical Library in honor of William “Wild Bill” Donovan, a Medal of Honor recipient and “father of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

In 2013, the Donovan Research Library merged with the Armor School Library to form the G3/Maneuver Center of Excellence Library Division, which now includes over 250,000 print and digital materials, staff and equipment, in the Building 70 location on the main post, adjacent to the Maneuver Center of Excellence Headquarters, Building 4, McGinnis-Wickam Hall.

“The G3/Maneuver Center of Excellence Library Division supports the training of Soldiers,” said Stanford. “MCoE Libraries provides academic reference, doctrinal research and bibliographic services in support of the students, faculty and staff of the Maneuver Center of Excellence. The Library Division provides reach-back capability from the force worldwide to the MCoE.”

One of Stanford and the Donovan Research Library’s ongoing projects is the maintenance of AKO and AKO-SIPRNET Communities which store and restrict access to over 600 Army Writing Program (AWP) monographs. These monographs are written firsthand by students who attended the Maneuver Captains Career Course (MCCC) and they describe their combat experiences during Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operations Other Than War.

“These papers represent information for lessons learned and training,” said Stanford. “The information is collected by the MCoE Command and Tactics Directorate (CATD) and Communicative Skills Branch.”

Back in 2003, Stanford was tasked with finding a secure and restricted location for these lessons learned and training purpose-only papers. She was referred to the AKO Administrator to set up knowledge centers under AKO rather than put them on a server at the Directorate of Information Management.

“The AKO Administrator assisted me with setting up three Knowledge Centers to house the papers, which I could then restrict to certain AKO Community members such as Active [Duty] Army, Army National Guard and DA Civilians,” said Stanford. “That process really worked well and allowed me to secure the documents and only allow access to those AKO Community Groups as directed by the CATD Communicative Skills Branch Chief.”

Now that AKO Classic has transitioned to AKO 2.0, Stanford is currently moving the current collections to the new site and still needs to restrict access the same way.

“The target audience is beginning to use the three restricted communities with over 600 student papers,” said Stanford. “Since the members are added by EDIPI [Electronic Data Interchange Personal Identifier] number versus in community groups, I created a Donovan Library Homepage in AKO 2.0 as the open access landing page and created a 4th community called “Request to Join” as a way to monitor the requestors needing access to the restricted communities.”

By doing that, Stanford could then review the requests to join and add folks individually to each of the three restricted communities, and then simply delete them from the 4th “Join” Community.

“It seems like a lot of work, but it has worked really well,” said Stanford. “I put the link to our homepage in AKO 2.0 which has the “Request to Join” community page link on it, so it’s easy to find. I then check for access and send them an email once I’ve allowed them to join.”

For organizations that need a place to store content or a secure environment with ways to limit access, Stanford insists that AKO 2.0 is a great place to start.

“I was able to complete one-on-one training with one of the AKO Community Administrators, who was extremely helpful,” she said. “He listened first to find out what I needed, which was how to restrict the communities and how I could add members. He was very knowledgeable and patient, and was able to walk me through how to create, restrict, and maneuver through the Communities. I’m pretty good at working my way through the site now, so I would recommend anyone that has questions or concerns, contact AKO for assistance.”

Stanford’s work storing and properly sharing and restricting the AWP monographs has resulted in some of the information from those vignettes being vetted and ultimately included in two books edited and published by former Communications Skills Branch Chief, Joanie Horton: Infantry in Battle from Somalia to the Global War on Terrorism (2005) and Maneuver Force in Battle (2015).

In the Introduction of Maneuver Force in Battle, Commander, MCoE, Maj. Gen. Austin S. Miller said this work represents the first endeavor by the students and instructors at MCoE – not just Infantry, or Armory, or Cavalry – but combined arms effort, “studying together in the same way as they fight together.”

“I believe that professional military education remains a core component of our profession,” said Miller. “An excellent way to begin the discussion is to study the combat experiences of our maneuver leaders who integrated combat arms in their conflict.”

For more information or to request an AKO Community for your Army unit or organization, visit: https://www.us.army.mil/content/armyako/en/community-site-request.html. Also, for more information on the MCoE Library's Virtual Branch, visit: https://www.benning.army.mil/library.

(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL