Former President Donald Trump announced Monday that he has chosen Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, a Marine Corps veteran and former fierce critic of Trump, as his running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
Vance, 39, is the first post-9/11 veteran to serve on a major party ticket and the first veteran to serve on a major party ticket since John McCain in 2008.
Vance’s military career
Born into a working-class family in Middletown, Ohio, Vance enlisted straight out of high school. He enlisted in the Marines in 2003 and served as a combat correspondent, or military journalist, until 2007, according to military news site Task & Purpose.
In his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” excerpted by Military.com, Vance described the press as “the Holy Grail of Marine Corps public relations: the largest audience and the biggest stakes.”
During his final nine months of service, Vance served as media relations officer at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, one of the largest military bases on the East Coast.
Vance’s stay in Iraq
Vance deployed to Iraq for six months in late 2005, where, according to his memoir, he “was assigned to various units to get a sense of their daily lives,” toured civilian reporters and wrote stories about individual Marines.
During a mission in Iraq, Vance said a defining moment occurred when he and his unit interacted with children at a local school: While handing out school supplies, Vance handed a young boy a small eraser.
After the boy received his eraser, Vance said, “his face lit up with joy for a moment and then he ran off in triumph to his family, holding his two-cent prize aloft. I have never seen such excitement on a child’s face.”
Vance spoke about how growing up with limited means and spending time abroad shaped who he is today.
“The resentment didn’t go away right away,” he says, “but as I looked out at so many children in a war-torn country, I began to realize how lucky I was. I was born in the greatest country on Earth, with every modern convenience at my fingertips. I decided in that moment that I would become the kind of man who would smile if given an eraser. I’m not there yet, but I don’t think I would have tried if it hadn’t been for that day in Iraq.”
Melissa Cruz is an election reporting fellow working on voter access issues for the USA TODAY Network. Contact her at mcruz@gannett.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @MelissaWrites22.
