Why did I start this blog?

That's a good question. There's quite a story behind it. It goes like this. I have a cousin - TJ - in the USA whose apparently highly intelligent and gifted son has shocked our non-military family by going into the US Marines. Whenever I'm in touch with TJ's sister, my cousin JT (funnily enough, those are her initials), who lives in Bristol, southwest England, I ask about the new recruit. Most of the time, the answer is that he's in the US, getting on with his training. Some months back, the answer changed to "he's on a ship somewhere in the Atlantic". I was given the name of the ship and his email address. "Why don't you write to him?" said dear JT, not knowing what she was starting. She's a dear cos, I really like her and feel she's like a good friend, but she has got me into trouble before - another story…

So I e-mailed him. Just a couple of lines to say that I hope my cousin-on-the-ocean is doing OK, making the most of it and writing a book. Never got a reply.

Actually, I have to backtrack. First I wasn't sure if I'd written the e-mail address correctly. So I stuck what I thought was the second half of it into google's search bar and pressed go - thinking I'd land on a Marines site and find other e-mails similar to it which would confirm that it was right. Google presented me with a slightly corrected version. Press go again. As I remember, there were just two links. I chose the first.

And that's how I ended up bang in the middle of New Recruit's online diary. It was a fascinating entry in which he revealed his full name and went into some deep, personal psychology - something which I found he does a lot of. I checked back to the home page and found his full name, the e-mail address I'd been given (that was the second google entry) and his ship's name and postal address. The mind boggles. Who else is reading this, I wondered, visualising a letter bomb on the way to that address...
And so, yes, I read his whole diary from start to finish - I mean, if you make it available to the whole world so easily, cos, you've only got yourself to blame. He's amazing. (I've met him only once, by the way, over 15 years ago when he was a kid of six. He was born and brought up in Boston). He's amazing, as I said. He's destined to be a brilliant writer, if he gets out of the Marines alive. Please, let that be so….

I posted a comment on his blog to warn him that he was too easily found, that he should watch it with telling people when his ship was due to arrive at a (named) European port [he'd removed the address by this time] and that I thought he was a brilliant writer and I'd be keeping my fingers crossed for him in the Fall. And I told him I'd do my best to kick the habit and stop reading his diary (as it didn't feel right by this time - the guy's not writing it for me). I'm pleased to say that he made it easier for me - yes, I confess, I've checked back very occasionally - by taking his entries offline for several weeks. He's back on again now, slagging off both candidates in the US elections. I'm not going to bother to tell him that one of them is his Chief Commanding Office - one intervention was more than enough.

So what's the connection between his weblog - it's not a blog as such, it runs via a different online journal site? Put briefly, I opened mine in order to stop reading his. I figured it wasn't healthy to be following New Recruit's life online so closely. Particularly as he happened to mention that he will be going to Iraq in the Fall. I don't want to be reading these heart-rending entries when he's posting from Iraq, I thought. The guy lays his soul bare. Sometimes, he's been desperately lonely. I can't stand that. A member of my family, even a distant one, who's going through excrutiating loneliness and I can't do anything to help. Plus, I can't ring my cousin JT any more and ask where he is and how he's doing because I already know (but don't want to tell anyone else in the family about that online diary). What would I do if the unmentionable happens? Tell them so they could read it?....

It quickly became compulsive and after three or four weeks of reading it, it wasn't easy to stop! (Now you know it, I'm not addicted to cigarettes, gambling or alcohol, I'm addicted to the internet and to blogs). At first, I checked out a few other weblogs written by military types, some of them already serving in Iraq. They, too, were quite fascinating though missing, of course, the added factor of being written by a close relative you've hardly ever met... I read James Joyce's 'From Here to Eternity' and found that the military characters in that book were saying pretty much the same things as modern day military bloggers - including New Rec - are saying on theirs.

And then, I decided that rather than reading other people's blogs, I should open one of my own. It's healthier. More fair. If New Rec finds this and wants to read it, he can.

Meanwhile, where are you New Rec? Are you already out there in I? I can ring my cousin now and ask her as I no longer know. Why, oh why, did you join up at a time like this? Are you crazy? What's going through your mind? What motivated you? (I know some of the answers from your blog. You're an idealist. You believe you're doing the best you can to protect the people you love. You want a life of adventure; none of this deadening corporate stuff for you) I salute you, cos. I don't share your views but I'm holding my breath here, keeping my fingers crossed that you'll be all right in that hell hole, that you'll come back alive, well and able to share your stories with the rest of the world.

That's why I started my blog.