[4][5] The symbol of a yellow ribbon became widely known in civilian life in the 1970s as a reminder that an absent loved one, either in the military or in jail, would be welcomed home on their return.

[6] In it, he told a variant of the story, in which college students on a bus trip to the beaches of Fort Lauderdale make friends with an ex-convict who is watching for a yellow handkerchief on a roadside oak in Brunswick, Georgia.

According to L. Russell Brown, he read Hamill's story in the Reader's Digest, and suggested to his songwriting partner Irwin Levine that they write a song based on it.

Hamill dropped his suit after folklorists working for Levine and Brown turned up archival versions of the story that had been collected before "Going Home" had been written.

[4] In 1991, Brown said the song was based on a story he had read about a soldier headed home from the Civil War who wrote his beloved that if he was still welcome, she should tie a handkerchief around a certain tree.

1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and BMI calculated that radio stations had played it 3 million times from seventeen continuous years of airplay.

On November 4, 1979, amid the turmoil in Iran following the flight of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to exile in Egypt, a group of students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

Over the 444 days of the crisis, the song became a national inspiration in America, encouraging Americans to use yellow ribbons as a way to keep the hostages in their hearts and to maintain pressure on President Jimmy Carter to negotiate for their release.

[38] With negotiations lagging, Carter ordered a military rescue of the hostage on April 24, 1980, which failed when two helicopters collided; eight U.S. soldiers died in the collision.

[41] In the Philippines, the song was best known for its use in the return of exiled politician Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983, when supporters tied yellow ribbons on trees in anticipation of his arrival.

This sparked protests and the People Power three years later that led to the overthrow of President Ferdinand Marcos' regime, and the accession of his opponent, Aquino's widow Corazón.