Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families

Operation Homecoming is the result of a major initiative launched by the National Endowment for the Arts to bring distinguished writers to military bases to inspire U.S. soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and their families to record their wartime experiences. Encouraged by such authors as Tom Clancy, Tobias Wolff, and Marilyn Nelson, American military personnel and their loved ones wrote candidly about what they saw, heard, and felt while in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as on the home front. These unflinching eyewitness accounts, private journals, short stories, and letters offer an intensely revealing look into extraordinary lives and are an unforgettable contribution to wartime literature.
 
“One of the chanted mantras of our time is, ‘But I support the troops.’ Terrific. Now read Operation Homecoming to find out who they are, what they think, feel, want, have learned, won and lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.”—Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal
 
“This anthology is the honest voice of war. . . . In the end, they are all one voice, a voice we must hear, and must not forget.”—Jeff Shaara
 
“These voices are stirring, chilling, and unforgettable.”—Bobbie Ann Mason
 
“[Captures] what journalists cannot, no matter how close they get—firsthand accounts from the warriors and the families they leave behind.”—Chicago Tribune

The Washington Post - Nathaniel Fick

This collection rings with truth, the sort of truth that mere observers of war find hard to capture. Generals and journalists and politicians -- even the best of them -- simply have a different point of view. Operation Homecoming relives five tumultuous years through the eyes of the men and women who've done the fighting. When asked why he chose to participate in the project, a Special Forces soldier replied, "This is the first time anyone's asked us to write about what we think of all that's going on."

Andrew Carroll is the editor of several New York Times bestselling books, including Letters of a Nation, Behind the Lines, and War Letters, which was also a PBS documentary. He is the founder of the Legacy Project, a national all-volunteer effort to honor veterans and active-duty troops by seeking out and preserving their letters and e-mails. He edited this book on a pro bono basis.