There is currently discussion of deferring publication until 2014 so we can include submissions from the training mission as well as from the newly launched Veterans Art Project. There are pros and cons to a later publishing date, but so far the advantages appear to out way the disadvantages.

The primary advantage to publishing this year, beyond the fact that this was the original intent, is the desire to see the book completed and published.

Publishing in 2014 allows us to gather more input and make the publication more representative. An initiative like this takes time to catch hold, as it were, and many who served in the earlier years will be hard to reach within the next five months. To publish in 2012, we must have ALL submissions in by early July.

Publishing in 2014 will do more than support a more inclusive legacy album. It will also allow us to develop a more robust, cross-platform, marketing  approach that can benefit from the media hype that will accompany the end of the training mission as the end of Canadian military invovement in Afghanistan.

Unless folks can present strong counter arguments to these advantages to a later publishing date, we are inclined to go that route. In addition to strong arguments, we would also need to see far more proactive advocacy on the part of those anxious to publish early. Don’t just sit on the sidelines and watch content grow. Share your own stories and images. Encourage submissions from your buddies who served. Help us reach out to Afghan Veterans from the early years of the mission. Without the early stories the book will be incomplete.

Stories don’t have to be complicated or big news items either. We are looking for the human reflections of the day to day experiences in the Canadian Afghan Mission. Simple, personal moments and insights. And these moments need not be those you wrote in the heat of things. They can also be reflections made today, looking back. This is your story. Help us to tell it.