Page 78 - Stand Down Vietnam

She was one of the happiest people in all of Harlan
county on the day we got married. She had chosen me to
be her great-granddaughter. I felt kinda special. We
got along well.

She told me great stories of how she worked in the
fields alongside her husband and boys. Once every
spring, one of the boys would take her across Lynch

Mountain to see her family before planting time. I
should have written a book.

Kenneth was a little bit ahead of me in school. After
he graduated, we got married. We moved to Louisville.
That was the farthest I’d lived from Harlan County.

We lived in Louisville for about a year before he
joined the Marine Corps. He joined just before our
daughter Teresa was born. When she was a year old, we
went to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

That was the farthest I’d been from home. Except for
trips into Virginia and Tennessee, I’d never been away
from home like that.

To me, that was a whole new world. All of a sudden,

this little Protestant, naïve girl from Kentucky was
thrown in with all races, all religions, and I liked
it. I liked knowing and getting to learn about all
those people.