Hillbilly Elegy

media relations worked so well that I
earned a commendation medal.
The experience taught me a valuable
lesson: that I could do it. I could work
twenty-hour days when I had to. I could
speak clearly and confidently with TV
cameras shoved in my face. I could stand
in a room with majors, colonels, and
generals and hold my own. I could do a
captain’s job even when I feared I
couldn’t.
For all my grandma’s efforts, for all
of her “You can do anything; don’t be
like those fuckers who think the deck is
stacked against them” diatribes, the
message had only partially set in before
I enlisted. Surrounding me was another