The following is the history of the professional magazine for Army and Marine Field Artillerymen from the first edition, January-March 1911, to this final March-April 2007 edition. The article is written in two overlapping parts: (1.) 1911 through 1987 taken from information written by then Major David T. Zabecki for the Military Periodicals: United States and Selected International Journals and Newspapers published by Greenwood Press in 1990. (1) and (2.) 1987 through 2007 by Patrecia Slayden Hollis, Managing Editor from 1987 to 1995 and Editor from 1995 to the present.
Editor
The first edition of the current Field Artillery, subtitled A Joint Magazine for US Field Artillerymen, was January-March 1911 under the title The Field Artillery Journal, affectionately referred to as "FAJ." The publication and parent organization, the US Army Field Artillery Association (USAFAA), were the consequences of the Artillery Reorganization Act of 1907, which split the US Army's Artillery into the separate branches of Field Artillery and Coast Artillery. Both the association and the FAJ were the idea of Captain (later Major General) William J. Snow, who saw a need for some vehicle through which the relatively tiny new branch (only 180 active-duty officers) could develop an identity.
The new association and its journal had three main purposes: to disseminate "professional knowledge," promote "a feeling of interdependence among the different arms and of hearty cooperation by all" and "promote understanding between the regular and militia forces." (2) These purposes remain in the final edition as printed on the inside front cover of this magazine.
The second purpose--what currently is known as "combined arms" thinking--was fairly progressive for its day. But it was in the third purpose that FAJ was a real leader. Relations between Active and Reserve Components of the Army were shaky, at best, prior to World War I. The efforts of the FAJ to include militia participation broke new ground and resulted in favorable comment from other branch association journals. (3)
The first issue of the 1911 FAJ had Snow as the editor. Although only one of the articles in that edition carried his byline, he personally wrote all but two. (4) Between 1911 and 1950, FAJ had 19 editors, all but two of whom held the position on a part-time basis. (See the figure.) Some only served for a few months, but the average tenure during that time was about three years.
Vision for the Future. The early editions of FAJ were influenced heavily by French thought. Quite often, articles translated from French journals outnumbered pieces from American contributors. Prior to World War I, translated German articles also were used heavily.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Throughout the interwar years, FAJ had a fair degree of impact on contemporary military thinking. In October 1918, Snow, by then a major general and Chief of Field Artillery, published a retrospective on American Field Artillery operations during the Great War that proved to be truly visionary in its projection of future warfare.
Bucking the traditional wisdom of the day, Snow maintained that the trench warfare of World War I had been a temporary aberration and that "open warfare" would characterize the conflicts of the future. For that reason, he concluded, Field Artillery training would continue to be geared toward supporting maneuver rather than static warfare. (5)
Two other articles also appeared in the interwar years that were significant for what was said as well as the fact that their authors would turn out to be major leaders in World War II. In 1937, Brigadier General Lesley J. McNair published an article on the newly emerging military applications of the helicopter. (6) And in 1941, Major Albert C. Wedemeyer presented an interesting article on antitank warfare. In his article published in the May 1941 edition, Wedemeyer, an Infantryman, stated, "The best defense against the lightning-like, destructive blows associated with modern warfare is the offense. Therefore, tanks and planes, with their recognized offensive powers, are the most effective means against armored forces and air units." (7)
Although the early FAJ accepted private advertising to defray costs, this was stopped by Congress in 1931, forcing the USAFAA to depend primarily on subscriptions and the sale of books, etc., for FAJ funding. (8)
FAJ's most important contributor was retired Redleg Colonel Conrad H. Lanza. Between 1921 and 1950, Lanza published 89 articles in FAJ. Most of them were historical or analyses of the current campaigns of World War II.
Starting in May 1942, Lanza also wrote a regular feature titled "Perimeters in Paragraphs." The column commented on significant diplomatic developments, summarized current military operations and occasionally made predictions. "Perimeters in Paragraphs" attracted a fair amount of attention during the World War II years. For example, Hanson W. Baldwin of the New York Times quoted Lanza in his column in the 4 December 1942 issue.
During World War II, FAJ was a central vehicle in what would become a high point in Soviet-American military cooperation. The November 1942 edition carried an article on antitank warfare written by Soviet Major General N. Gavrilenko. The article was written exclusively for FAJ through the cooperation of the Soviet embassy and transmitted from Moscow by radio. It was only the first of several such efforts. Between 1942 and 1946, 29 articles by Soviet authors appeared in the pages of FAJ.
FAJ's Russian connection came to an abrupt halt in 1947, however, when Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky branded the magazine as a "warmonger." A lead story in the 23 October 1947 issue of the New York Times explained that the attack on FAJ "was occasioned by an article regarding tactical exercises that did not name a possible enemy but gave Russian names to the cities involved."
FAJ subscriptions that had stagnated around 2,000 from 1920 through 1936 jumped to 3,000 in 1938 and 4,400 in 1940. (9) FAJ reached its all-time high circulation of 19,200 in 1943; but with the end of the war, circulation dropped off to only 5,000 by 1948.
Giving Birth to Army Magazine. In the late 1940s, there was a movement within the Army to eliminate internal bickering among the branches by merging the branch associations. Such an "all-Army" organization would present a united Army voice in an ambiguous era heralded by armed forces "unification." Moreover, this new body would publish a single ground combat journal using its pooled resources to support a full-time civilian staff.
The last edition of the original run of The Field Artillery Journal published by the USAFAA came in May 1950. The Field Artillery and Infantry Associations merged to form the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), and that body began publishing its monthly journal in August 1950. The new publication was called Combat Forces Journal (CFJ), and its logo carried the subtitles Infantry Journal and Field Artillery Journal. It was presented as a continuation of those two magazines, and the initial full-time staff came from both of the predecessor publications.
The Honorable Harry S. Truman, the President of the US, was the Honorary President of AUSA. As a Field Artilleryman and Reserve colonel in the branch, he had been the Honorary President of the Field Artillery Association for several years.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The early editions of CFJ were a blend of its two branch predecessors with many of the regular contributors of the earlier journals continuing to present the same types of articles. Colonel Lanza continued his regular feature with the title changed to "World Perimeters."
Gradually, however, the scope of the new journal broadened, and the number of articles that related specifically to either the Infantry or the Field Artillery decreased. Then in 1954, CFJ dropped the Infantry Journal and Field Artillery Journal subtitles from its logo, and a few months later, its title was changed to Army. Meanwhile, all Army Artillery had been merged back into a single branch at the end of 1950.
Rebirth of the Journal. The rebirth of the magazine was a long and slow process. In 1957, the US Army Artillery and Missile School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, started issuing a house-publication. By the fourth edition of the Tactical and Technical Trends in Artillery for Instruction issued in October 1958, the name was changed to Artillery Trends and remained so for 39 editions.
The name then changed to The Field Artilleryman in the April 1969 edition after the Army Artillery once more split into the separate branches of Field Artillery and Air Defense Artillery. In January of that year, the school had changed its name from the US Army Artillery and Missile School to the US Army Field Artillery School. The school printed eight editions of The Field Artilleryman as an "instructional aid, published whenever sufficient material is available."
Between 1957 and 1972, the school published 50 editions.
Throughout the late 1960s, most of the Army's branch schools had been pressing the Department of the Army (DA) for permission to publish branch periodicals on a regular basis. In 1972, DA finally gave permission. The last edition of The Field Artilleryman carried an appeal from Brigadier General Robert J. Koch, Assistant Commandant at Fort Sill, asking for reader support for a new Field Artillery professional journal. (10)
The first edition of the restructured Field Artillery Journal came out in July 1973 under the editorship of Major Alan A. Word. The revived publication picked up the numbering sequence from the old FAJ with Volume 41.
The first edition carried an article by Historian Fairfax Downey that provided an additional bit of continuity with the old FAJ. The main difference between the old and new journals was that the latter was an official Department of Defense publication rather than an association's magazine. The new Field Artillery Journal also had a full-time military editor and a small staff of civilian Army employees.
In his opening editorial, Word said he intended to publish the Field Artillery Journal "under the forum concept." (11) He and subsequent editors have stressed that FAJ was not an official voice of the Field Artillery School, although information from the school was an important part of most editions. Every editor since the rebirth has urged participation from the readership.
The new Field Artillery Journal carried over two key themes from FAJ: the continual stress on combined arms thinking and aggressive efforts to include the reserve components. The importance of this latter point is all too critical under the force structure of the times where more than 50 percent of the Field Artillery was either in the National Guard or Reserve.
In 1974, the Field Artillery Association was also revived as the Field Artillery Historical Association. Then in 1980, it became the US Field Artillery Association (USFAA), dropping the word "Army" from its name in recognition of its Marine Corps Field Artillery members.
Although the association was no longer the parent body of the Field Artillery Journal, a close tie continued to exist in the person of the editor, who also served as the association's executive director. USFAA bought copies of the government's printing of the Field Artillery Journal for its members.
It took some time before the Field Artillery Journal evolved into the "forum" its editors envisioned. Occasionally there were criticisms from readers that the Field Artillery Journal was "an excellent info sheet but no forum." (12) Editors Major John R. Dobbs and Major Terrence M. Freeman slowly expanded the Letters-to-the-Editor section by printing some of the shorter and more thoughtful articles as letters instead. Although this angered some contributors who felt their efforts were downgraded when printed as letters, the foundations of an effective forum did develop.
Changes in the Magazine. By the end of 1986, the Field Artillery Journal was facing its old nemesis, the government budget ax once again. It was one of 41 publications recommended for elimination by the Army Publications Review Committee. The Commanding General of the Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), however, decided to let the branch magazines survive in the "more economical bulletin format." Starting with the August 1987 edition, the Field Artillery Journal made changes to comply with the TRADOC regulations for funding by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Doctrine.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The magazine became Field Artillery with the subtitle of A Professional Bulletin for Redlegs and eliminated all information that was purely editorial, public relations or personality profiles (in the latter, except for people of historical significance) and made other changes. Most of the changes were to make the magazine cheaper for the Army to publish, such as limiting the use of coated paper, color, photographs, etc. (In the early 2000s, the various branch bulletin editors slowly reinstated all the economical changes as technological advances in desktop publishing software and printing made the additional costs of printing, say, photographs, inconsequential and covers limited to black and white with one additional color internationally antiquated.)
One change that TRADOC directed was a standard professional bulletin (PB) numbering system, which remains today. The system changed from FAJ's volumes and numbers to (on the front cover of this magazine) "PB6-07-2," which stands for "Professional Bulletin 6" (the FA's designated number); the year (2007); the number of the edition for that year (2).
In the 1980s, many Field Artillery Journal articles dealt with the problems derived from rapidly evolving technology and its impact on military doctrine, a trend that continued with Field Artillery. To support the AirLand Battle warfighting doctrine, Artillery thinking had to shift from the traditional mission of massing fires over a wide front to shooting deep to extend the depth of the battlefield.
In addition, the new doctrine called for mobile armored warfare to move rapidly to outflank the enemy and (or) take advantage of his vulnerabilities. The magazine published a controversial article in 1988 that was co-authored by then Lieutenant General Crosbie E. Saint, the III Corps commander, and then published an interview with him later that year. In both pieces, General Saint advocated the FA be capable of moving rapidly with the lead elements of the armored strike force to destroy the enemy. This flew in the face of the FA School's concept that the FA should remain relatively stationary and support the maneuver forces with fires massed where the maneuver commander wanted them.
Once again, Field Artillery pointed the way to the future. Less than three years later in March 1991, the FA moved with the lead elements of rapidly moving maneuver formations to outflank and surprise the Iraqi forces during Operation Desert Storm (ODS)--the wartime application of AirLand Battle.
The 72-page September-October 1991 edition had the theme of "Redlegs in the Gulf," and was the first of the Army branch magazines to chronicle the events of ODS in detail in an entire edition. The magazine was in print just five months after the March 1991 war. Field Artillery's being the first of the branch magazines to chronicle the war in an entire edition would repeat itself for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
Theme Editions. In 1985 under Major Roger A. Rains, editor of the Field Artillery Journal, and then continued by Major Charles W. Pope, editor of Field Artillery, the magazine moved to a theme issue concept. Each edition concentrated (although not exclusively) on a topic, such as counterfire, the FA and combat service support, and massing fires.
The earlier themes tended to cover FA firing operations and the desired effects. Then as time progressed, the themes moved more into covering fires in joint and combined operations, digitizing the force, other new technologies and, finally in the early 2000s, into nonlethal effects and stability operations.
The September-October 2002 magazine focused on Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, the first major military operation of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). In a highly controversial interview, the commanding general of forces in Operation Anaconda, then Major General Franklin L. Hagenbeck, criticized the Air Force for the quantity and timeliness of the Air Force's close air support (CAS). The controversy brought the magazine considerable international media attention and the Air Force and Army to the table to fix major problems with CAS rapidly before OIF.
After the interview and other controversial articles on Operation Anaconda were published in 2002, the magazine gained a wider Air Force readership that noted the fire support aspects of the Field Artillery's mission for the ground forces in OEF and OIF. Also, significantly more articles by Air Force authors began appearing in the magazine--articles on providing ground forces airpower, especially CAS.
Throughout the editions in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the magazine's sub-themes were related to killing the enemy deep to keep from having to kill him up close, developing fire support capabilities to kill targets reliably in the close fight and prosecuting integrated joint operations. Once again, the FA developments and magazine discussions held the branch in good stead for combat, this time in Iraq. At the beginning of OIF, Field Artillerymen helped the Air Force prep the battlefield deep before Coalition Forces crossed the line of departure, firing more than 400 Army tactical missile systems (ATACMS), including some ATACMS unitary missiles, the first FA precision-guided munitions (PGMs) fired in combat. Field Artillerymen also provided close fires while moving rapidly with the lead elements of the ground forces.
The theme approach ended in 2004 when Patrecia Slayden Hollis, the magazine's only civilian editor, stopped the practice to focus all editions on OIF and OEF for the nation at war. Hollis was the second woman editor (the first's being Captain Suzanne W. Voigt who was the Acting Editor for four months in 1987) and the longest serving editor of the magazine. Hollis was the editor for more than 12 years, from 1995 through the last edition in 2007. Prior to her editorship, the longest serving editor had been Major Dean Hudnutt, who was the editor for three years and nine months from 1932 to 1936.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The Red Book. From 1986 until 2000, the last edition of each year was called "The Red Book," an annual report of the state of the American Field Artillery, which included unit reports, maps of joint FA units worldwide and other reference information. It was similar in concept and format to Army's annual "Green Book."
With the 1987 edition under Editor Pope, the Red Book changed from an annual report for only Army Field Artillery active duty officers to a more inclusive report for Army and Marine Corps Field Artillery officers, NCOs and enlisted men, both Active and Reserve Components. This continued the magazine's tradition of including its Reserve Components and endorsed the branch's joint partners, the Marine Field Artillerymen.
With the 1998 Red Book state-of-the-branch article, the vision for Field Artillery gave voice to the focus on joint operations with munitions centrality, the age of effects, digital connectivity and deep fires. These concepts laid the groundwork for the development of systems and employment concepts for OIF.
After the 2000 November-December edition, the Red Book was published every other year. Even in the odd years in which the Red Book was not published, the Chiefs of Field Artillery continued to publish annual state-of-the-branch articles.
By the 2006 Red Book, the Army had imposed so many operational security (OPSEC) publication restrictions due to OEF and OIF (not allowing the magazine to publish the commander's list or unit reports) that the Red Book became a mere token of previous Red Books.
History Writing Contest. The magazine also reflected the renaissance in military history in the US Army. From 1986 through 2003, roughly 15 percent of the articles were historical with the emphasis on "lessons learned" that apply today.
During that time, the USFAA sponsored an annual history writing contest run by the magazine staff. Two of the history contest winners won the prestigious Army Historical Foundation's national award for Best Army Professional Journal History Articles for 1998 and 2001; in addition, the foundation selected several other USFAA history writing contest winners as finalists over the years. (13)
Then in 2004, Hollis temporarily suspended the contest due to lack of participation. From 1986 through 2003, authors had supported the annual contests with multiple entries. However by 2004, as the articles and interviews indicated, a large part of the Army and Marine Corps Field Artillerymen were deployed, recovering from a deployment or preoccupied with preparing to deploy again for OIF or OEF, which limited their participation in the contest.
Interviews--National and International. From 1987 through 2006, the magazine published frequent interviews with senior Army, joint and allied leaders; also, several junior NCOs were interviewed for the series "A Soldier's Story." More than 90 interviews were published in Field Artillery during that time, the vast majority of which were conducted by Managing Editor and then Editor Hollis. During that time, the focus was on the magazine's providing "something for everyone" with the readership target of E6 though general officer.
Although the interviews covered FA operations and developments, the interviewees discussed them within the broader context of overall Army, joint and combined operations, including ODS, OIF and OEF, drawing a broader audience. As a consequence, the interviews often were quoted or reprinted in manuscripts and other magazines or publications, such as the Pentagon's Early Bird, and used extensively in research.
Dual Magazines: Field Artillery and the FA Journal. In the early 1990s, Congress passed an ethics in government law limiting, among other things, private organizations from benefiting from government contracts or activities--separating "church and state." This had a great impact on the magazine and the association.
The law spelled out strict rules for "conflicts of interest," which restricted the active duty editor from also serving as the Executive Director of the association and caused the Chief of Field Artillery to maintain his distance from the association. During that time, the USFAA replaced its active duty military board members with retirees.
In 1996, the final legally driven separation of the government's magazine staff and the private Field Artillery Association came with the March-April edition. With that edition, the association discontinued buying copies of Field Artillery from the government and started printing a separate version of the magazine for its members, called the FA Journal, subtitled A Professional Journal for Redlegs.
The professional content of the FA Journal was a reprint of Field Artillery (provided by the government magazine staff to the association on CD); the FA Journal also included commercial advertising and association news. The new magazine sported full-color covers and heavier coated paper with a crisper printing of photographs and art--all prohibited by the Army in the name of economy.
By 1998, the circulation of Field Artillery and the association's FA Journal was about 15,000 per edition, with each providing half.
The November-December 2003 edition of Field Artillery moved into full recognition of the joint nature of the magazine. Hollis changed the subtitle of Field Artillery from A Professional Bulletin for Redlegs to A Joint Magazine for US Field Artillerymen on behalf of the Marine Field Artillerymen readers. About the same timeframe, the USFAA changed the FA Journal's subtitle to A Joint Journal for US Field Artillerymen. The titles remain through this last edition.
Keeping Up with Publishing Technology. Field Artillery has been innovative in its use of publishing technology. In 1992, Editor Colin K. Dunn moved the magazine away from camera-ready mechanicals (hard copy layout) to digital layout of the magazine, with the exception of photographs and some art that had to be developed and positioned by the print contractor.
Hollis continued the movement toward more advanced technology in publishing and distribution. By the May-June 1995 edition, the magazine was laid out entirely electronically with print contractor's receiving it on a CD.
Today, the printer receives the magazine in a pdf format that the magazine staff uploads electronically to his file transfer point (FTP); the edition is developed to allow the printer to go directly to the presses and output to film, skipping the plate-making stage of the printing process.
In the late 1990s, the magazine started an electronic home page with an archive of editions online from the latest edition back to those in 1959. Today, the magazine's home page has an archive of "Past Editions" back to 1959 that are searchable by a Google Mini device. By June 2007, the archive will have all editions online back to 1911. The archive is at sill-www.army.mil/famag/index.asp.
Posting the magazine online led to new era of global coverage that continues today. As an example, an online article about the Battle of Fallujah that was printed in the March-April 2005 edition caught the eye of the anti-American media and provided "grist" for a 2006 international negative "spin" campaign. The media used one paragraph in the article as proof that the US had employed white phosphorous (WP) in the battle and decried erroneously that WP was a chemical weapon and banned internationally. Once again, the magazine came under the eye of a media storm with national and international queries--this time because of the media's distortion of information posted online.
Today, the print circulation of the dual magazines is about 12,000, with 7,600 free copies going to Army and Marine Corps Field Artillery units and various other US government agencies. The remaining 4,400 printed copies are distributed as part of the USFAA's membership benefits.
The 1980s magazine staff maintained an estimate of its "readership," based on the limited numbers of printed copies going to units, libraries and other organizations and an assumption that the copies had more than one reader. With 90,000 copies printed in 1986, the staff calculated the magazine had a readership of about 250,000.
Today, it is more difficult to estimate the number of magazine readers. In spite of the fact that only 72,000 copies are printed, the magazine is online on its home page and in multiple research and reference databases. As one example, in the past five and one-half months, the magazine's home page has received an average of 238 "hits" per day--some 42,400 readers in less than six months.
The Final Editions. During the 2000s, the magazine covered not only advances in technology, but also the changes to FA and Army units to become more modular and transform into a future combat system (FCS) force. In one breakthrough of technology, Field Artillery covered the FA's new PGMs and new software to support precise target location in its July-August 2006 edition. These PGMs and the supporting targeting software, including innovations in digital clearance of fires, are changing the face of kinetic effects in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially in the urban areas. Along with Air Force PGMs, ground force commanders now can access an unprecedented range of capabilities in precision kinetic effects, truly revolutionizing ground warfare.
Since OIF began in 2003, the magazine also has printed articles on Field Artillerymen serving in GWOT as motorized infantryman and commanders of motorized infantry task forces or brigades, as information operations (IO) and civil military operations (CMO) officers at the tactical levels, and as lethal and nonlethal effects coordinators at all levels. FA fire supporters in GWOT routinely coordinate and integrate nonlethal effects as well as the more traditional lethal effects.
As Field Artillery ceases publishing, its proud history boasts of having recorded the movement of the branch from focusing on Field Artillery firing operations to fires in combined arms operations to fires and effects in joint and combined operations across the spectrum of conflict, including counterinsurgency and stability operations.
The last several years of Field Artillery editions have discussed the consolidation of branch schools in centers of excellence, including the potential to re-merge the FA and Air Defense Artillery branches; FA Soldiers and leaders serving the Army as multi-capable Pentathletes in full-spectrum GWOT operations; the overriding emphasis on integrating joint fires and effects in GWOT, including developing joint fires observers (JFOs) and joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs); the restructuring of the force to make FA organic to the maneuver brigade combat teams (BCTs); and the beginning of Field Artillerymen's and Combat Engineers' eligibility for selection to command BCTs.
Historically the magazine's contents have pointed to the future of the FA and the Army. So, based on articles since 2000, what might the future look like?
Endnotes:
1. Michael E. Unsworth, Editor, Military Periodicals: United States and Selected International Journals and Newspapers, (New York, NY: Greenwood Press, 1990), 94-99.
2. William J. Snow, "United States Army Field Artillery Association," The Field Artillery Journal (hereafter cited as FAJ) (January-March, 1911), 7-9.
3. Editorial, Journal of the United States Cavalry Association 21 (July 1910), 170-172.
4. Snow, "Sketch of the Origin of the Field Artillery Association," FAJ 22 (July/Aug. 1932), 536.
5. Snow, "Field Artillery--A Retrospect," FAJ 9 (October-December 1918), 477-479.
6. Lesley J. McNair, "And Now the Autogiro," FAJ 27 (January-February 1937), 5-17.
7. Albert C. Wedemeyer, "Antitank Defense," FAJ 31 (May 1941), 258-272; quote from 271.
8. Major Alan A. Word, an unpublished manuscript, "FA Journal Goals," 1975, 1.
9. Ibid, 2.
10. Robert J. Koch, "A Message from the New AC," The Field Artilleryman 50 (October 1972), 1.
11. Word, Editorial, Field Artillery Journal 41 (July 1973), 1.
12. Roland P. Shugg, a Letter, Field Artillery Journal 52 (January-February 1986), 11.
13. See the editorial piece "Field Artillery History Author Wins National Award," Field Artillery (July-August 2001), 33.
Major General David T. Zabecki, a US Army Reserve Field Artilleryman, is the US Army Europe's (USAREUR's) Deputy Chief of Staff for Mobilization and Reserve Affairs in Heidleberg, Germany. Previously he was the Commanding General of the Southern European Task Force (SETAF)-Rear in Vicenza, Italy. He also served in Israel as the Senior Security Advisor on the US Coordinating and Monitoring ("Roadmap") Mission. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was a frequent contributor to Field Artillery and won several History Writing Contests. He holds a Ph.D. in Military History from Britain's Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham, England, and is the author of seven history books. General Zabecki retires in August 2007.
Patrecia Slayden Hollis has been the Editor of Field Artillery since April 1995 and served as the Managing Editor from October 1987 until March 1995 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In her previous job, she taught Communication Skills in the Field Artillery Captain's Career Course at the FA School, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. She also taught Freshman English at Park College, Parkville, Missouri; was a technical writer for the Training Extension Course (TEC) Program at Fort Eustis, Virginia, and served as a news reporter for the morning and evening editions of the Lawton Publishing Company, Lawton, Oklahoma, winning four state writing awards. She holds an MA from George Washington University in Washington, DC. She retires in July 2007.
By Major General David T. Zabecki and Patrecia Slayden Hollis
RELATED ARTICLE
* Lester L. Miller, Jr., Index to The Field Artillery Journal: Author and Subject Index January 1940-December 1986, 3 volumes (Fort Sill, OK: US Army Field Artillery School, 1977-1987).
* Carl H. Schofield "History of The Field Artillery Journal, 1911 to 1949," Master's Thesis, University of Missouri, 1950;
* Morris Swett, Reader's Guide to The Field Artillery Journal: Author and Subject Index January 1911-December 1939 (Washington, DC: The Field Artillery Journal, 1940).
Additional References for Field Artillery
Editor Start Date End Date
CPT William M. Snow Jan 1911 Jun 1911
CPT Oliver L. Spaulding Jul 1911 Dec 1912
CPT Louis T. Boiseau Jan 1913 Jun 1914
CPT Marlborough Churchill Jul 1914 Dec 1915
CPT John Nesmith Greely Jan 1916 Feb 1916
LTC Dwight E. Aultman Mar 1916 Mar 1917
COL Clarence Deems, Jr. Apr 1917 Sep 1917
MAJ Claude B. Thummel Oct 1917 Dec 1917
LTC Arthur F. Cassels Jan 1918 Dec 1922
MAJ T. Worthington Hollyday Jan 1923 Feb 1923
MAJ William C. Houghton Mar 1923 Jun 1926
MAJ Harleigh Parkhurst Jul 1926 Sep 1928
MAJ John M. Eager Oct 1928 Dec 1931
MAJ Dean Hudnutt Jan 1932 Sep 1936
CPT Michael V. Gannon Oct 1936 Sep 1939
LTC Wilbur S. Nye Oct 1939 Jun 1942
LTC John E. Coleman Jul 1942 Dec 1945
COL Devere Armstrong Jan 1946 Nov 1947
COL Brekinridge A. Day Dec 1947 Jun 1950
MAJ Alan A. Word Jun 1973 May 1976
LTC William A. Cauthen, Jr. May 1976 May 1979
MAJ John R. Dobbs Jun 1979 Oct 1982
MAJ Terence M. Freeman Oct 1982 Jul 1984
MAJ Roger A. Rains Jul 1984 Mar 1987
CPT Suzanne W. Voigt* Mar 1987 Jul 1987
MAJ Charles W. Pope, Jr. Jul 1987 Aug 1990
LTC Colin K. Dunn Sep 1990 May 1992
LTC Jerry C. Hill Jul 1992 May 1993
Patrecia Slayden Hollis* Jun 1993 Sep 1993
LTC Robert M. Hill Oct 1993 Dec 1994
Patrecia Slayden Hollis* Jan 1995 Mar 1995
Patrecia Slayden Hollis Apr 1995 Apr 2007
*Acting Editor
Field Artillery Editors. This list is from the first edition, January-
March 1911, until the last, the current edition.