December issue

I am Christopher West. I am a private first class in my Junior ROTC class at school.

I looked through your December 2010 magazine, and when I opened it up, one thing caught my eye. This man was standing there, as you open up the magazine, with a stuffed animal or a thing he takes to war, if I remember.

Anyway, it said by the picture of him that he was a master sergeant, but his own rank said he was a sergeant first class.

I showed one of my friends in the same class, and then I showed it to my own sergeant. I was just wondering if he got promoted or what happened. I don't mean to bother you, but I was just wondering. My sergeant said I should write a letter to you and see what happened, so that is what I am doing.

Thank you,

Christopher West

North Little Rock, Ark.

EDITOR'S RESPONSE

MR. West is correct. The image of the Soldier featured at the top of the contents page in the December issue shows Master Sgt. John Oster as a sergeant first class. Oster has since been promoted to master sergeant.

Prior to publishing content in the magazine, I double-check name spellings and ranks to make sure we accurately identify the individuals we feature. But because our production cycle is lengthy (we received content for the December issue in September), Soldiers are often promoted, assigned to new units or sometimes even out of the Army by the time the magazine is published. Soldiers may send us older images as well.

I apologize for any confusion this may have caused, and thank Mr. West for his attention to detail, and his interest in Soldiers magazine. We always want to present our content in a clear manner, but we also want to make sure we donAca,!a,,ct rob any Soldier of a hard-earned promotion.

Regards,

Carrie McLeroy

Editor in chief