A life time ago I was in the army – basic grunt, but I specialized as a combat signaller. There is barely anything I remember from those times (the early 1980’s) about signalling; but there is one-thing I do remember (and is not covered by the official secrets act) which has stood by me with the passing years and is useful in situations where you have to report or analyze; These things are covered by the labels:

1. Who
2. What
3. When
4. Where
5. Why (optional)
6. How

This is especially true in an ambush situation where you need to tell your superiors what is happening in as accurate and succinct way as possible. What these labels mean is:

Who is making the call/being observered.
What is happening.
When is it happening,
Where is/will it happen,
Why is it happening, and finally
How did it happen, and how are you going to respond.

For example as a member of a section being ambushed I would say for example:

“Hello X this is Y, Ambushed by Enemy Infantry at 12:10 zulu grid reference A, retiring to point B”

Nothing that interesting in a military context, or in a civilian one? Well don’t be too hasty since it is useful in providing succinct reports or preliminary analysis on a subject or research paper. For example regarding reading a technical paper:

Who is the author
What are they writing about, and
what are the circumstances in which it was written (external effectors) including what sources influcenced the paper/idea.
Also what are you going to do as a response to this paper (ignore, cite, incorporate ideas etc).
When was the paper written.
Where was the paper written (location, company etc – and how would that effect/influence the paper and its impartiality/content),
Why is this paper important/interesting,
why was it written,
why am I reading it.
How will/did it influence you, the company, the field, global events.

It can be more mundanely applied to status reports:

Who is making the report
What did you do and what are you going to do next.
When did you do it.
Where did you do it/make-changes.
Why Did you do it/make-changes

On a side note one thing I always found disturbing as a combat signaller was being told that the first person an enemy kills (especially in an ambush situation) is the signaller – that said it was always a better job than carrying a heavy machine gun or anti-tank weapon around.

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