OCEANSIDE–Highlighting private correspondence from almost every major conflict in U.S. history, War Comes Home: The Legacy is now on exhibit on the second floor of the Oceanside Public Library’s Civic Center.

The traveling exhibition, rich with historic and contemporary letters, offers an intimate perspective into the thoughts and emotions of veterans and their families upon a soldier’s homecoming.

War Comes Home: The Legacy is part of Cal Humanities’ current War Comes Home initiative, a thematic program designed to promote greater understanding of veterans, and explore how war shapes a community. The exhibition is based on the work of the Center for American War Letters (CAWL) and is presented by Exhibit Envoy. Andrew Carroll, the Director of CAWL and an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author, and John Benitz, Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at Chapman University, co-curated the exhibition.

The exhibition explores the joys and hardships that returning soldiers and their families face during homecoming, as expressed through private letters and email correspondence. Spanning conflicts from the Civil War through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and displayed on thirteen interpretive panels, War Comes Home: The Legacy explores the shared themes of wartime separation, the adjustment to life back at home, and the costs of war. As Staff Sergeant Parker Gyokeres writes, “Those of us coming back…are not looking for sympathy. We might be reluctant at first to talk about what we’ve been through…[but] your support has made this journey an incredible one…Thanks, above all, for listening.”

This exhibition runs through June 17 at the Oceanside Public Library’s Civic Center, located at 330 North Coast Highway in Oceanside.