A Magazine Looks to the Past and Future.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

Welcome to the National Defense Industrial Association's big centennial issue.

1 hope readers enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed putting it together. Technically, this publication celebrates NDIA's centennial, not the magazine's. The Army Ordnance Association was founded in July 1919 and Army Ordnance magazine came along one year later in July 1920.

For some 15 years, I have shared my office with the back issues--all 103 volumes. And during most of my tenure here, I paid them almost no attention. The daily grind of publishing a monthly magazine and website left me little time to casually flip through their pages. But that changed as the 100th anniversary approached. I had to start thinking about this momentous issue so it was time to crack open those bound volumes.

Inside, I could trace the evolution of the magazine from a mostly technical journal for its first 50 years to the journalism-driven publication we see today. Army Ordnance--and later just Ordnance--mostly comprised articles contributed by military ordnance officers, sometimes scientists and civilians, predictably about bullets and bombs, the means to deliver them, along with some military history articles. Commentaries on military readiness were also a staple. Division and chapter news usually took up several pages.

And then there were ads, oftentimes the most fun part of flipping through the old issues. There aren't many, but a few of those advertisers are still around. Caterpillar, for example, bought the front-page ads for the magazine's first few years. Smith & Wesson, Colt, U.S. Steel, Dow Chemical and Day & Zimmermann are a few others whose names live on despite the changes in technology and industry consolidation.

The other enjoyable discovery was finding the names of past contributors who went on to become legends of military history. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Douglas MacArthur was a semi-regular contributor to the magazine and a big supporter of the association's goal of preparedness. Gen. Hap Arnold, Adm. Hyman Rickover and Gen. Curtis LeMay are among the other contributors in the section "On Preparedness," which begins on page 12.

Along with these luminaries, there were some surprises such as journalist Ernie Pyle, comic book creator Will Eisner and astronaut Neil Armstrong.

And because National Defense today remains focused on the future, this special issue includes a section, "The Future of Warfare," where we have asked notable thinkers to cast their eyes 20, 50 and...