Hillbilly Elegy

on in the world, you’ll get your head
blown off.” “Don’t you want to be
around for Lindsay’s kids?” “I’m
worried, and I don’t want you to go.”
Though she came to accept the decision,
she never liked it. Shortly before I left
for boot camp, the recruiter visited to
speak with my fragile grandmother. She
met him outside, stood up as straight as
she could, and glowered at him. “Set one
foot on my fucking porch, and I’ll blow
it off,” she advised. “I thought she might
be serious,” he later told me. So they
had their talk while he stood in the front
yard.
My greatest fear when I left for boot
camp wasn’t that I’d be killed in Iraq or