In 2008, U.S. Armed Forces active duty troops and veterans of both current and past conflicts will have an in-depth opportunity to reflect on their service through the National Endowment for the Arts’ groundbreaking initiative Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience.  Operation Homecoming will host writing workshops at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers, military hospitals, and affiliated centers in communities around the country. 

The NEA created Operation Homecoming in 2004 to help U.S. troops and their families write about their wartime experiences. Through this program, some of America’s most distinguished writers have conducted workshops at military installations and contributed to educational resources to help the troops and their families share their stories. A related ongoing call for writing submissions has resulted in more than 1,200 submissions and 12,000 pages of writings.  Almost 100 of the submissions to the NEA were featured in the anthology Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families (Random House, 2006).  The University of Chicago Press will release an expanded paperback version on Memorial Day 2008.  The Operation Homecoming archives will be preserved in both the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and the Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project.

About the anthology