Hillbilly Elegy

grail of Marine Corps public affairs: the
biggest audience and the highest stakes.
Our media officer at Cherry Point was a
captain who, for reasons I never
understood, quickly fell out of favor
with the base’s senior brass. Though he
was a captain—eight pay grades higher
than I was—because of the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, there was no ready
replacement when he got the ax. So my
boss told me that for the next nine
months (until my service ended) I would
be the media relations officer for one of
the largest military bases on the East
Coast.
By then I’d grown accustomed to the
sometimes random nature of Marine