Herold Noel, 25, from Brooklyn, NY, served as a Private First Class with the 3rd Infantry Division. Less than a year after driving trucks to the front lines, delivering fuel as U.S. troops invaded Iraq, Herold found himself back in the United States, homeless, and struggling to find a place for himself and his family.

** UPDATE: Thanks to an anonymous donor who contacted IAVA, Herold Noel now has a place to say -- an apartment for him and his family in the Bronx.  The New York Post ran a follow-up story.  Read it here.

Herold was featured in the New York Post, and is the focus of a new documentary, When I Came Home.  He was featured on Air America's "Unfiltered: Ask a Vet"  and has also spoken on Hot 97, and been profiled by CBS News, NPR, GNN, Democracy Now, RNN and the Indypendent. 

While in Iraq, Herold often penned his thoughts down, to express his feelings about the war. Here is one of his many poems:

Cav Soldiers 
Faces of pain
Faces of struggle
Faces of fear
Faces of those who care
and Faces that don't
Faces of comfort
Faces of lovers
Faces of mothers and fathers
Faces of son and daughters
faces that are young and
Faces of fighters
Faces of champions
Faces of leaders
These are the faces of 3/7 Cav
Soldiers fighting for one country's freedom.

I'm one of the faces. I'm a certified Cav soldier prepared to fight for my country's safety. Who's certified to fight for the safety and livelihood when we( the soldier) came home from war.  -H. Noel

"This is me and my sister."

"This is me and my son.  We were taking pictures before I left for Iraq."

"I stuck my head out the window to tell my wife goodbye.  I was trying to hold my tears in.  So I stuck my head out the window so the other guys wouldn't see me crying.  When I shut my eyes, when I went back in, a tear fell out anyway." 

"Sitting waiting for formation at Fort Stewart, Georgia."

"We were about to run into the town in the distance.  There was a lot of fighting, so much fighting that we had to bring the Air Cavalry.  We stayed there for two hours.  There were dead bodies on the side of me, when I was taking pictures.  There was a bad stench."

"This tank right here got hit from the back and fuel was coming out.  So it needed more fuel to go back into the battle, which is about a football field in front of me.  We had to fuel them up so they could go back to the fight.  While the fight was going on, I pulled out my camera and told one of the tankers to jump out and take my picture so I could make my own history book of the war."

To arrange an interview with Herold, please contact press[at]iava.org.
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