Description

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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  

About the Author

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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.
  

Praise For…

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“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

“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

“[These writings] help us gain a fuller appreciation of those fighting, and dying, in a war so far away and requiring so little sacrifice at home.”

— USA Today

“The goal of the project, beyond providing an emotional and expressive outlet for military personnel and their families, and getting the basic eyewitness facts of history down on paper, is to add to a long tradition of war literature. . . . The collection rings with truth, the sort of truth mere obervers of war find hard to capture.”

— Washington Post