Hillbilly Elegy

hours about war rations, Rosie the
Riveter, her dad’s wartime love letters
to her mother from the Pacific, and the
day “we dropped the bomb.” Mamaw
always had two gods: Jesus Christ and
the United States of America. I was no
different, and neither was anyone else I
knew.
I’m the kind of patriot whom people
on the Acela corridor laugh at. I choke
up when I hear Lee Greenwood’s cheesy
anthem “Proud to Be an American.”
When I was sixteen, I vowed that every
time I met a veteran, I would go out of
my way to shake his or her hand, even if
I had to awkwardly interject to do so. To
this day, I refuse to watch Saving