On the afternoon of 9th March 2018 the staff of, and external contributors to, COMBAT & SURVIVAL Magazine heard the shock news that its Publisher was closing down.
Later that night the magazine’s Editor of twenty year and Contributor since it started as a partwork a decade before (i.e. moi) started JOINT-FORCES.com with the hope of keeping the specialist team of freelance defence photojournalists together, and by the following Monday our website was live. Earlier today, just one year down the line, we achieved the incredible statistic of 1.25million page views (our original target was 100K in the fist six months). My heartfelt thanks to both our Sponsors for supporting us and my team of colleagues for providing copy, but sincere thanks are also due to you the viewer for continuing to read our copy and click on the adverts.
You might be wondering about the choice of lead photo. To cut a long story short, I am a bit of a workaholic and have not taken a full day off since starting the website. So, just before Christmas, my friend Ramilla suggested I should take a weekend off to coincide with the site’s first birthday. We both fancied Rome, which I have not been to for almost fifty years and until now she had never visited. I did not tell her until yesterday that our destination would also give me the chance to photograph the Italian Army on Operazione STRADE SICURE (Operation SAFE STREETS). I told you I am a workaholic. BM
