OPERATION HOMECOMING: Iraq, Afghanistan & the Home Front

Today, Random House is publishing an extraordinary new book titled: OPERATION HOMECOMING: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families. Admittedly, I’m a bit biased about the anthology because something I wrote is in it, but even if I weren’t a contributor I would feel just as strongly about the importance of this book and the project behind it.

In the spring of 2004, and for the first time in history, the National Endowment for the Arts asked military personnel and their families to write about their wartime experiences. Troops and their loved ones sent in more than 10,000 pages of short stories, personal letters, poems, private journals, and other writings, and the NEA selected the 100 best of these submissions to be published in the collection. The collection has been lovingly edited by Andrew Carroll, an award winning author and editor.

"Operation Homecoming" is a National Initiative is different from all the other books about Iraq and Afghanistan because it is not written by a reporter or a famous general, but by everyday folks who have lived through a wide range of experiences overseas and here at home. We’ve heard from the politicians and the pundits. Now it’s time to hear from the troops and their families.

Please know that “Operation Homecoming” is not a political book intended to promote or criticize a certain agenda. I have spoken (and gotten to know) Andy, and his whole mission is simply to ensure that Americans better understand what the troops and their families go through on a day-to-day basis. Yes, there are some very intense pieces in the book about what many troops are sacrificing, but there is a lot of humor, too, and, most of all, a sense of pride. I am truly honored to have contibuted to this book and this project.

Andy will be going on a 30-city book tour throughout the U.S., and he is also traveling to military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan to personally hand deliver books to troops stationed overseas. He is extremely passionate about this book, and he did this entire project without pay. (The book’s royalties are going back into programs that support the military.) Andy has never served in uniform himself, but he is a real admirer of those who do—and of their loved ones, whom he knows bear the brunt of war, too.

For more info about Andy, his website is www.WarLetters.com.

YOU CAN ORDER THE BOOK HERE and it will be available in bookstores today.