In deference to the company’s roots, AIT (ait.com) is offering one year of free hosting to all military personnel and units with the purchase of a domain name.

Though service personnel have email through the armed forces and many dependents have their own free mail accounts, a website lets troops and entire units go further in keeping in touch with the folks back home. “I’ve been deployed many times; your family has no idea what is really going on. They can only rely on what they read and see through the mass media, which tends to be very broad-based,” said AIT’s Chief Executive Officer Clarence Briggs, an ex-infantry officer and veteran of the first Gulf War and Operation Just Cause in Panama. “With websites, individuals and units can upload pictures, share stories, and make the connection between battlefront and home less distant.”

The hosting accounts include unlimited email accounts, so troops who need to send multiple messages don’t have to struggle to remember email addresses that reflect several ISP’s. The hosting accounts also include private chat rooms, BLOGS, mailing lists and over 100 free features not available with “Free” hosting alternatives. For units, websites are a means of documenting deployments, a type of “write-it-as-you-see-it” historical chronicle that will outlast even the best of memories. “Every unit keeps records of places it has gone and action it has seen,” said Briggs. “This is the information age photo album.”