Edrington- In the Shadow of My Father

6 September, 1998.

Have arrived at West Point. Cramped quarters, but I don't expect to spend much time in this room, except during my few moments of carefully-snatched sleep and journal writing, on occasion.

I expect I'll do well here. I'd better do well. Soldiery is in Edrington blood. We've been attending West Point nearly since the school was founded. Father did very well before he entered the world of politics (and after, but I meant militarily). I pray I'll do as well as he, or better. I have, after all, a reputation to live up to already, courtesy of generations of other Edrington men. I must be among those at the forefront of the student body, top of my classes; the quickest, the smartest. They must listen to me. I must prove myself a leader, and quickly, though I suppose that might be a bit difficult in my first year. But if I can do it when I am among those underclassmen so looked down upon, all the better.

My roommates are out now. Not bad guys, but I don't think we'll become close friends. I'm not really the sort who makes friends easily; I have only a very few. But four years is a long time.

People tell me I take after Father. I don't believe I see it. He has friends, close friends even. He laughs often. I don't laugh much. I smile instead, sometimes. We are both cool-headed, though, practical, intelligent. We are similar in appearance, as well -- tall, blonde, blue-eyed. Not bad-looking, if I say so myself, though I must admit I may not be the most impartial judge of that.

Would that I was like Father. I think I worshipped him as a boy. Now I don't know what I feel anymore.

A greater tendency towards laughter might be useful diplomatically. Still, a gift for diplomacy is another trait my father and I share, a blessing for both of us; it is a gift important both in the military and on the Hill (Capitol Hill). But I digress.

So here I am, eighteen and at West Point. No surprise. As I've mentioned it's tradition. I've always known I'd end up here. Don't remember how young I was when I first knew. Feels like I was born knowing. Maybe I was -- in my blood, remember?

All I know is that I was raised to enter the military and, as like as not, will end up in politics one day. Just like Father. Another Senator Edrington, D-NH.

Maybe it's not that I am actually like my father. Maybe it's that they haven't spent enough time with me to decide I'm not, and expect, from my appearance, "so like your father at your age," that I will be. Or perhaps it's only that they wish I was. Smart and charming and always in control, cool and calm and prepared. Well, I can be like that. I am like that. But there will always be comparisons, and I am the one who will always be found lacking.

posted at 6:40 p.m. on 07-16-02