American non-fiction filmmaking has entered a new era, embracing the full range of filmmaking possibilities. The era of traditional American news coverage is dead. And so is the era of traditional American documentary filmmaking. But they aren't yet buried. If you're reading this online right now, you are an example of the deaths of those eras, and a poster child for the new. Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience incorporates the full range of documentary techniques, old and new, in our goal to represent honestly the emotional lives of troops as expressed in their writings about their experiences in Iraq.

It's been written and stated repeatedly that we hear/see less about the war in Iraq than we did from Vietnam or other recent conflicts. I believe that there is in fact more information and coverage from Iraq than in any previous war. You just can't find it in the normal places. We've crossed a technological divide, where anyone can theoretically access accounts and images from Iraq that reveal all sides of the conflict, from gore-ridden battle aftermath to small election successes, with disrupted Iraqi lives, and images of the dead and suffering on all sides (and demonstrating that there are more than 2 sides). Images that can be seen almost immediately around the world; blogs from troops and journalists in the field and families at home; personal accounts (such as at aliveinbagdad.org) from the ground of citizens trying to build their lives in a war-torn land. Video and footage from soldiers - soldiers! - making their daily rounds, or revealing the horrors of explosions and massacres. These voices were unheard of in previous wars.

And yet people still say they see none of it. The major networks show none of it. They are no longer news, unwilling to face the depths of human suffering and resiliency without it being neatly packaged as a digestible three-minute narrative, revealing human triumph over adversity. But in a war, people don't always triumph. And citizens in a democracy need to be reminded of that regularly.

The development of new forms of coverage in day-to-day reportage is paralleled by the evolution in methods used in documentary films - viewers can access the information in new ways.

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