Hillbilly Elegy

newest war. I thought about the GI Bill
and how it would help me trade
indebtedness for financial freedom. I
knew that, most of all, I had no other
choice. There was college, or nothing,
or the Marines, and I didn’t like either of
the first two options. Four years in the
Marines, I told myself, would help me
become the person I wanted to be. But I
didn’t want to leave home. Lindsay had
just had her second kid, an adorable
little girl, and was expecting a third, and
my nephew was still a toddler. Lori’s
kids were still babies, too. The more I
thought about it, the less I wanted to do
it. And I knew that if I waited too long,
I’d talk myself out of enlisting. So two