NASHVILLE, Tenn. – For a little more than a year, members of the U.S. military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families wrote about their wartime experiences and now these uncensored writings will be shared Wednesday, Nov. 29, at 4:10 p.m. in Room 103 of Vanderbilt University‘s Wilson Hall.
The university‘s American Studies Program, the Jean and Alexander Heard Library, and the Gertrude Vanderbilt and Harold S. Vanderbilt Visiting Writers Series are sponsoring the event, which is free and open to the public.
In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) created Operation Homecoming to help U.S. troops and their families write about their experiences. Some of America‘s most distinguished writers such as Richard Bausch, Mark Bowden, Tom Clancy, Bobbie Ann Mason, Marilyn Nelson, Jeff Shaara and Tobias Wolff conducted writing workshops at 25 domestic and overseas military installations from April 2004 to 2005. An open call for writing submissions was also issued to troops who have served since 9/11, and their spouses and families.
The initiative resulted in more than 12,000 pages of submissions, about 100 of which were included in a book published this year – Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Home Front in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families – and edited by Andrew Carroll. In addition to the book, Operation Homecoming will preserve all submissions in a federal government archive. A television documentary on Operation Homecoming will air on PBS in 2007.
At Vanderbilt, award-winning author Bausch and Jon Parrish Peede, director of Operation Homecoming, will join Sandi Austin, Kathleen Toomey Jabs and Ryan Kelly, members of the military who will read from their contributions to the book and discuss their service in Iraq and at the Pentagon. A reception and book signing will follow.
Austin joined the Army Reserve in 1998 and following her initial training, completed a basic Arabic course at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif. She then joined the 445th Civil Affairs Battalion. Her unit was deployed to Iraq in November 2003 for an 11-month tour. In Mosul, Sgt. Austin was part of the three-person Governor‘s Liaison Team that worked directly with the State Department to develop the Nineva Provincial Council and Mosul City Council.
Kelly, a captain with the New Jersey Army National Guard, was deployed to Kuwait and Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom III. Based at Camp Speicher, near Tikrit, Iraq, from November 2004 to November 2005, he served as commander of a 77-member UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter maintenance company. As a Blackhawk pilot, he logged more than 175 hours of combat flight time and was awarded the Bronze Star. He also helped coordinate rescue efforts following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Jabs is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. She served on active duty for six years and is currently a commander in the Navy Reserve assigned to the Public Affairs Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Bausch is the author of 10 novels and five collections of short stories, including Take Me Back, which was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award, Hello to the Cannibals and Thanksgiving Night. He has received several awards, including a NEA fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Lila Wallace-Reader‘s Digest Writer‘s Award and the Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters. He is also the Lillian and Morrie A. Moss Chair of Excellence at The University of Memphis.
Peede is counselor to the NEA‘s chairman. He graduated from Vanderbilt with a bachelor‘s degree in English and earned a master‘s degree in Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi. He has held positions as a book publisher and editor, magazine editor and writer, and college professor.
Media contact: Princine Lewis, 615-322-NEWS
princine.l.lewis@vanderbilt.edu