From Mosul, Iraq, soldier Ryan Alexander wrote a poem about a pregnant cat, “a happy distraction” that he fed from prepackaged military meals. Ignoring warnings from medics, Alexander put on a plastic glove and petted the wild creature, “who may be the one true heart and mind that America had won over.”

Back home in Colorado Springs, Colo., Melissa Herman imagined what her reaction would have been had her Army husband been aboard a helicopter that crashed in Iraq.

“I can feel the devastation and hurt of knowing that I am alone,” she wrote. “I feel trapped in a tornado: screaming, crying, angry then numb.”

Earlier this year, the National Endowment for the Arts asked U.S. soldiers and their families to write down what they saw, heard and felt during the war for a program called “Operation Homecoming.” Some 400 pieces of wartime writing have reached the NEA since April, and thousands more are expected.

“There’s no voice more authentic or captivating than those who are on the front lines,” said Andrew Carroll, who is editing the best submissions into an anthology that will be published in 2006.

The results so far are both raw and compelling. The NEA provided several samples to The Associated Press and the program’s director, John Parrish Peede, described others.

A musician with a Marine band wrote about how hard it was to keep up bandmembers’ morale in the wilting 120-degree heat. A lieutenant colonel described escorting a servicemember’s body home.

Navy sailor Patricia Totenmeiner listens to author Mark Bowden during a writing workshop for U.S. military personnel called Operation

Army Sgt. Michael Thomas wrote of choking back tears when his unit returned from Iraq and received a 3 a.m. greeting from elderly veterans for their long-delayed homecoming at a Maine airport.

“Their now-feeble right arms stiffened in salutes, their left hands holding coffee, snacks and cell phones for us,” Thomas wrote.

Operation Homecoming is mostly supported by a $500,000 budget from Boeing Co.