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It was only after five years in the army, when I was having to do a very boring job in a very boring place, that I thought: 'Why not try writing a novel?' partly out of youthful arrogance and partly because there had been a long line of writers in my mother's family.

Now, when I was in the Army, writing was my hobby.

I don't think I would have written a combat novel if I had just had peacetime military training. I think, in fact, I probably would have remained a poet and just written a short story every now and then.

I wrote a novel about the combat experiences I didn't have in Vietnam.

I have been writing for 50 years and readers still read my first book from when I was in the Marine Corps.

I basically wrote five books with 'Night Soldiers,' called them novellas, and came in with a 600-page manuscript.

I've read a lot of war writing, even World War I writing, the British war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves's memoir 'Goodbye to All That,' and a civilian memoir, 'Testament of Youth,' by Vera Brittain.

Writing 'Native Guard,' I didn't know I was working on a single book. I began writing that book because I was interested in the lesser-known history of these black soldiers stationed off the coast of my hometown.

I'd been in college studying English creative writing and history when I made the decision to join the Marines in the runup to the Iraq war.