Message from the Editor Capt Donavon Boyd
Welcome to the 2015 Military Mapper (which can be downloaded using the link below). I hope that you will find it entertaining and informative. The theme for this year is Relevance. 2015’s articles are all about how our actions this year have set the conditions for Military Mapping in the years to come. I was in a quite unique situation too where, as I was editing articles, I was repeatedly struck by confusion, thinking to myself “I don’t remember that”. This was often shortly followed by, “Oh, that happened while I was on tasking”. Being Editor allowed me to vicariously experience the fun and games at the end of 2014 that I missed and then the summer fun that I missed when I returned for a second time to the AOCC in the UK. It made me smile and made me a little sad that I wasn’t able to experience it firsthand.
As Editor, when laying out what we would be doing this year, I had to deal with a personal challenge: making it fun. After a decade of military indoctrination, it could be said that my writing style is straightforward and honest, with a minimum of personality manifesting through my words: or in a word, dry. For the Mapper though, I didn’t want something dry and formal. The Military Mapper is not the Annual Historical Report. While the Historical Report should be formal, and factual, with little flare or style, the Military Mapper is how MCE and the geo family capture our culture. While it is important for the Historical report to tell who went where and did what, I believe the Mapper should capture the fun and excitement at MCE, and the challenges we met and the time spent together. With that in mind, I had to restrain my red pen when editing articles, to allow the personality and humour, which would normally be cut from military writing, to stay in the articles. I hope that you enjoy the results.
(And I hope that the Mapper continues the tradition forged by previous teams, such as the 2001 Military Mapper Team shown on the right)
Download your own copy using the link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8xGe-hpchBWdzhldVpSLUN5Slk/view?usp=s…