Comments on: On Coming Home for Christmas

by: lorenzo

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:03:56 +0000

i grew up on john wayne and audie murphy movies. i believed in apple and the girl next door. before coming back from my jungle tour, all that began to change. now, the young have to experience it again! when bullets fly, it’s just about you and the bond with your buddies. thanks for showing, we who fought, had more depth to us than the way we’d been portrayed.

it wouldn’t have mattered to all to the Tonys if anyone gave any attention or fan fare, on their way to eternal sleep. they didn’t lay down their lives for that. —thanks bro

by: Laura L

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 01:55:42 +0000

Some stories have to be told and some writers are meant to tell them. I call the collision of those of those circumstances, literature. This one is well done.

by: norm

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 01:18:27 +0000

I am a Marine combat veteran of Vietnam, and that story brought back a lot of memories of my Christmas in the 106th. Army Hospital in Yokohama, Japan. I knew a lot of ‘Tonys’ who never made it home in one piece. Your story is simply wonderful, Mr Trainor.

by: andrew g

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 00:40:50 +0000

The rat bastards on Pensylvania Ave. should get a look at this story. Today, more than ever, when everyone has a position and a plan for war, we should perhaps start by listening to the men and women who fight them. Thanks for this. I am sorry for your loss.

by: Arla Hock Ford

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 05:18:39 +0000

I dated Ed as a lovestruck sophomore in an Alaskan high school. He visited me while on leave from Biloxi 3 years later. It was my last contact with him. I often wondered if he \”made it\”. We grew up in military families with proud traditions and unrealistic expectations. I am so grateful to be permitted to peer into a sliver of Ed\’s life and find this depth, compassion, and purpose. Thanks for capturing a seering season of your life and ours, all of ours. Send me more of your writing. No wonder your sis is proud of you!

by: M. Sue Pagay

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 03:10:56 +0000

A beautiful story of a bleak Christmas when young lives were lost for a war no one understood. I knew a Tony back then. A marine who wanted to “be where the action was.” He came home, but not as the same “he” who left…. And here we are again, young people being brought home in boxes or maimed for the rest of their lives for a war no one can understand. When will we ever learn?

by: Charmie

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:58:16 +0000

Perfect.

Keep writing, my friend. The rest of us need you.

by: angiemparish

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:40:55 +0000

Having known of the existence and circumstance surrounding this story for many many years now, I have never had the honor of reading it until a few moments ago. I cannot begin to state what a wonderfully moving writer I personally find Mr. Trainor to be.

This sentiment is not passed on purely because I am his twin or because he is now and has always been my hero; but more so because his abilities to make the written word speak volumes in so few paragraphs that my heart crys for more to read. My deep thanks to Ed Trainor (my alter ego) for sharing this with the world.

by: RaynRoberts

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 05:16:26 +0000

“On Coming Home for Christmas” is a well written and touching story of love between men which needs no explanation about “the kind of love” that may or may not have existed. Love needs no explanation and often defies it. The story is beautiful and more ought to be written and welcomed in the world. Thanks to Ed Trainor for creating it.