Operation: Homecoming

Operation: Homecoming is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Department of Defense that makes writing an important component of rehabilitation and recovery. Starting with a writing workshop built into the critical phase of rehabilitation for troops, Operation: Homecoming is then opened up to allow family members the opportunity to also share their experiences through memoir, fiction, poetry, journal entries, and essays. The program started as an NEA initiative in 2004, bringing high profile writers to teach workshops at military installations at home and abroad. After an open call for writing submissions from those that have served since 9/11, the 10,000 pages of submissions were anthologized into the collection Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Homefront in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families.

The initiative was also the basis of Operation Homecoming: Writing the War Time Experience, a documentary film included in PBS’s America at a Crossroads series.The program is being conducted with programmatic support from The Writer's Center. Operation Homecoming has been sponsored by a partnership with NEA and The Boeing Company since its inception in 2004.