Hillbilly Elegy

opportunities, they stay there. Years
later, I looked at my wedding party of
six groomsmen and realized that every
single one of them had, like me, grown
up in a small Ohio town before leaving
for Ohio State. To a man, all of them had
found careers outside of their
hometowns, and none of them had any
interest in ever going back.
By the time I started at Ohio State,
the Marine Corps had instilled in me an
incredible sense of invincibility. I’d go
to classes, do my homework, study at the
library, and make it home in time to
drink well past midnight with my
buddies, then wake up early to go
running. My schedule was intense, but