Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience Archives : Page 3 of 3 : Operation Homecoming:

Hazel Jane Raines, Read By Diane Cooper-Gould (WWII)

Hazel Jane Raines perfected her piloting skills as a barnstormer in Georgia air shows during World War Two. Raines first served the Allied cause as an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot for the RAF in England. When the U.S. military finally accepted women pilots. Raines returned to the states and joined the Wasps, pulling targets for gunnery trainees, a pilot of extraordinary skill. Raines flew 44 types of airplanes and was the first female reserve pilot called to active duty during the Korean War. Here, Diane Cooper Gould reads from Raines letters home from wartime England. Sunday morning, March 28th, 1943. Dearest mother. Now that it’s all over, I’ll tell you all about a funny experience I had sometime ago. I would have told …

Hugh Alexander Leslie, Read By Edward Gero (WWI)

Throughout history, the sailors life has always involved risk and peril. In World War one. A terrible new danger was introduced. The submarine attack. In the following letter, a young Navy sailor from Texas, Hugh Alexandra Leslie, tells his family about the sinking of the USS President Lincoln. Actor Edward Giraud reads a selection from Leslie’s June 1917 letter. My dearest and beloved parents and brothers and sisters, I received your most kind and appreciated letters since I hit the old USA. Again, I suppose you read about us losing our good ship Lincoln by two torpedoes from an enemy sub. Also, the lives of 24 of our shipmates. I sent you a telegram as soon as I drove in New York. I …

Dana Gioia, writing the wartime experience

War and military service have been major literary subjects as long as there has been literature. The earliest masterpiece of the Western tradition. Homer’s Iliad, portrays the heroism and human cost of the Trojan War, while its companion poem, The Odyssey recounts one veteran’s long and difficult homecoming. The great national epics, from the Aeneid of Imperial Rome to the Shahnameh of medieval Persia mostly commemorate the decisive military encounters that shaped each cultures history. Many great authors have also been soldiers. The Greek playwright Sophocles, creator of Oedipus Rex, served as an Athenian general in the Peloponnesian War. The Roman poet Horus fought at the Battle of Philippi. Shakespeare’s friend and fellow playwright Ben Jonson served in the infantry in the Flemish …

Welcome

The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to present Operation Homecoming, writing the wartime experience. This unique literary program is aimed at preserving the stories and reflections of American troops who have served our nation, both on the frontlines in Afghanistan and Iraq, and stateside, defending the homeland. The Arts Endowment is sponsoring a series of writing workshops on U.S. military installations at home and abroad for returning troops and their families, taught by some of America’s most distinguished novelists, poets, historians, and journalists. These workshops will provide servicemen and women with the opportunity to write about their wartime experiences in a variety of forms, from fiction, verse and letters to essay, memoir and personal journal. The visiting writers, many of whom …