The actions of our armed forces are rarely out of the media, in particular since coalition forces entered Iraq last March to precipitate a regime change. How could we forget the "24/7" rolling news coverage of the fighting phase of Operation TELIC? But I wonder how many of us stopped to think of the work that was being done by the military environmental health staff, before, during and after the war? Environmental health has a vital role to play in protecting the health of our armed forces, both at home and abroad, and also contributes to the humanitarian effort that inevitably follows any conflict. It is an area of the profession that gets little recognition, and this issue of EHJ focuses on a number of different aspects.

I report from the third tri-service conference on environmental health in the armed forces, hosted last November by the Royal Air Force, and attended by around 100 delegates. Speakers from the army, Royal Navy and RAF updated colleagues on a whole range of issues from communicable disease control, provision of safe water, environmental industrial hazards to environmental health training.

Then, Major James Fletcher of HQ 1 (UK) Armoured Division in Germany looks at the management and integration of environmental health support on military operations, focusing on the recent deployment to Iraq. For the army environmental health cadre this presented the opportunity to test and validate some of the operational environmental health concepts that have been developed in recent years. Read on to find out how the cadre supported units throughout the four phases of an operation.

Lieutenant Alister Witt of the Royal Navy takes this a step further and paints a vivid picture of his environmental health team's work as part of the wider effort with 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines. Lieutenant Witt is unusual in that he entered the Royal Navy through direct access as a fully qualified EHO and along with colleague Lieutenant Nic Vines who is ex-local authority trained, he talks to me about the transition from civilian to military environmental health practice.

Finally we have a report from Basra on the work Andrew Mathieson, ex-senior lecturer in environmental health at the University of West of England, is doing to rebuild Iraq's devastated health care system.

I hope you enjoy this issue of EHJ as by the time you read this, I will have taken up a new challenge myself as editor of Occupational Therapy News at the British Association of Occupational Therapists, and will have passed the journal to Stuart Spear, currently deputy editor of EHN.

A big thank you for all your support - especially to all those of you I've spent many a happy hour with at various events debating the merits of good health over a glass of wine (or two!) and a bag of crisps!

Tracey Khanna
Editor