Here are stunningly honest first-hand accounts and personal reflections by U.S. troops and their families.
To encourage U.S. troops and their families to record what they saw, heard, and felt during combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, the National Endowment for the Arts organized a series of writing workshops in the summer of 2004 led by prominent authors. The result is this extraordinary volume of never-before-published letters, poems, journals, memoirs, and e-mails, first-hand accounts from the men and women directly involved in battle and the reflections of their families back home.
As featured on the cover of theNew Yorker and in various print and televised news programs, this is not only a rich historical document that will preserve the stories and reflections of American troops in the war on terror but also an important addition to the long tradition of war literature at a crucial moment in American history.
Newspapers, magazines, and books, as well as radio and TV, explore the broad issues and events of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but only rarely can they get the real story experienced by the military personnel on the front lines and at home. OPERATION HOMECOMING is a compilation of writings by those experiencing the warfare directly. The collection includes eyewitness accounts, personal journals, short stories, and even poetry. Several readers share the narration, which gives each entry a unique tone. The entries start with the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and continue nearly to the present. The stories are visceral, at times graphic. They are uniformly moving. Given that the war continues, some of the entries are almost poignant. Short biographical notes give the listener background on the authors. R.C.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2007 Audies Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Andrew Carroll’s books, War Letters and Letters of a Nation, were New York Times bestsellers. In 1998, he founded the Legacy Project, a national, allvolunteer effort to honor and remember our nation’s veterans by seeking out and saving their letters. He is editing this book on a pro bono basis. Carroll lives in Washington D.C.
