As you may have heard, Google is beta-testing a new e-mail service called GMail. It's free, and users get a gigabyte of storage. Which would be great for storing (and saving) lots of pictures from home, and maybe some short video messages too, so a mom or dad who's on overseas deployment could watch their new baby taking her first step, or see their son score the winning touchdown...or whatever.
Here's the catch. Since it's in beta at the moment, GMail is only available by invitation from someone who has it. If you're a Blogger user, you can get it, and eventually you'll get some invites to pass out to friends and family. It may be that you know tons of geek-savvy people who'd just love to have a GMail address, and that's cool. But if you're like me and most of your friends aren't into the Web quite so much as you are, you may have a few invites going begging.
Wil Wheaton (yes, that Wil Wheaton) has gotten a site together, GMail4troops.com, where people who have invites can share them, and where people who want them can ask for them. I've posted my four there, and if you have any invites that aren't spoken for, I'll encourage you to do likewise. And if there aren't any military folk asking at Wil's site, there's also gmailforthetroops.com.
And there's more. As the GMail system seems to work, if you use your invites....you get more of them. A perfect illustration of the Sermon on the Mount--the more you give away, the more you have to give. And you get to do something to boost the morale of the troops stuck out in the deserts with people shooting at them, thanks to our idiot preznit and his lust for war. Yes, they shouldn't have to be there, and in a just world they wouldn't. But the fact is, they are there, and this is an easy little thing that people can do to make it a little easier for them and their families to cope with that fact until they can come home. God grant that day dawns quickly...and in the meantime, that there will be plenty of generous people with GMail invitations who are willing to share.