to secure national advertisers for the publication; corporations who had large budgets and could afford to advertise in their magazine. Esprit de Corps was first published as an illustration oriented magazine, with small articles and more entertainment oriented content. Due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Canadian government’s subsequent downsizing of its military expenditure, the Canadian Forces were experiencing cutbacks and changing the way in which its personnel would be transported. This affected Esprit de Corps drastically, as Canadian Forces personnel would now be transported via flights chartered by Air Canada. Because of the loss of its Canadian Air Force distribution and the cost-cutting atmosphere of the military community, Scott Taylor and his wife decided to convert their magazine to a newsstand monthly. The new magazine would feature mainly current military news and Canadian military history. The magazine continued to retain its seat-back distribution with Air Canada military charters and Scott Taylor began to hire staff in order to help fill their new eighty-four page format. In 1991, Esprit de Corps ran a controversial article, in which they interviewed the recently resigned vice-Admiral Chuck Thomas, recognizing and supporting Thomas, who had claimed that the Canadian Forces were not properly prepared for the future. As a result, the Department of National Defence ordered Air Canada to cease distribution of Esprit de Corps aboard their military charter flights. The DND’s decision was later reversed when Scott Taylor threatened to issue a press release detailing corruption involving the DND official magazine Canadian Defence Quarterly. 2004 Kidnapping and Release On September 7, 2004, Scott Taylor and Turkish journalist Zeynep Tugrul, who works for the Turkish newspaper Sabah, arrived in Iraq to report on the Invasion of Iraq by the United States Military. Their reporting brought them to the city of Tal Afar in the predominantly Turkmen North, where the U.S was on the verge of major action against mujahedeen fighters. At a quarter past 7:00 on September 7, Taylor and Zeynep met with an Iraqi police checkpoint, planning to get directions to their contact in Tal Afar, Doctor Jashar. They were directed to a waiting car filled with masked gunmen, whom they believed to be Iraqi Special Forces. They were driven by the masked gunmen to a resistance safe house, where they were kidnapped by Ansar al-Islam, a radical Islamist group and accused of being spies. Scott and Zeynep were held