Soldier Magazine SOLDIER Magazine , the official monthly publication of the British Army , is produced by an in - house team and published by the Ministry of Defence . It strives to offer an effective means of communication aimed primarily at junior ranks but also of interest to all ranks of the British Army , cadets and the wider military community , including veterans and members of the public with an interest in militaria . Its objectives include providing a channel of welfare information ; promoting the British Army ' s image internally and externally ; and contributing to the upkeep of morale within the Service . Tri - annual independent readership research [ by the Army Management Consultancy Services ] of its core audience has produced strong evidence that most officers and soldiers read some of the magazine and that some officers and soldiers read most of the magazine . The publication ' s robust and oversubscribed correspondence pages , which allow serving personnel to air grievances , criticise procedure and raise areas of concern , further indicate that the readership is genuinely engaged with the magazine . The magazine is distributed free to serving personnel ( 70 , 000 copies ) , but paid - for subscriptions - an unusual requirement for a government - sponsored publication - have risen year on year , most recently by 2 per cent . SOLDIER subscribers number 2 , 627 ( latest figures December 2007 ) , with an additional 4 , 514 copies sold through newsagents in the UK . About 15 , 000 visitors from 85 countries read the magazine online each month , taking away a positive impression of the British Army . On 1 January 2008 , a free - access digital edition of SOLDIER was launched on the World Wide Web via http : / / www . soldiermagazine . co . uk / The range of coverage includes news sections ; features ; celebrity interviews ; sport ; music , book and games reviews ; and , crucially , a controversial warts - and - all correspondence section , in which military personnel are invited to have their say . After some initial misgivings about " washing dirty linen in public " the Army ' s chain of command is now fully signed up to the section , regarding it both as a valuable pressure valve for serving personnel with grievances and confirmation of issues flagged up by the MOD ' s independent Continuous Attitude Surveys and the Chief of the General Staff ' s Briefing Team . Tapes and CDs of the magazine produced by the Talking Newspapers organisation are used for English language tutoring of Gurkha recruits and the magazine is extensively used as a language learning aid by British Council teachers instructing former Soviet Bloc military personnel under the British Government ' s Partnership for Peace initiative . History . Given the go - ahead by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery as a morale - boosting magazine for British Liberation Army troops then fighting in Europe , the first fortnightly edition of SOLDIER was printed on presses in Brussels in March 1945 . It was conceived by Colonel Sean Fielding ( later to become Editor of " The Tatler " and " Daily Express " ) while he was serving in the Western Desert . Its first editor was Philip ' Pip ' Youngman Carter ( himself the husband of detective fiction writer Margery Allingham ) who , in due course , also went on to become editor of " The Tatler " . A reporter from " SOLDIER " was one of the first to record the horrors of the Belsen concentration camp and the magazine ' s " scoops " included revealing the secret engineering feat of Operation Pluto . The publication was expected to disappear as peace and normality returned but survived to become the house magazine of the entire British Army . As the Armed Forces reduced in size after the Second World War , so the magazine ' s circulation declined to fewer than 20 , 000 by the end of the 1980s . It was radically redesigned in October 1997 and changed from fortnightly to monthly publication . It is printed by Wyndeham ( Roche ) . Awards . Since switching in October 1997 from fortnightly production to an expanded monthly aimed broadly at a younger audience , " SOLDIER " was named in 1998 , 2000 and 2005 as the best internal magazine in Britain by the British Association of Communicators in Business ( CiB ) , the leading professional corporate communicators ' body in the UK . It was named the best internal magazine in Britain for 2009 , 2010 and 2011 by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and was awarded the same title in 2010 by the Institute of Internal Communication . Staff . Editor in Chief – Steve Muncey Editor – Sarah Goldthorpe ( its first ever female editor ) Assistant Editor – Joe Clapson Assistant Editor – Rebecca Clark Sports Editor – Richard Long Photographer – Graeme Main Photographer – Steve Dock Art Editor – Tudor Morgan