The political career of JD Vance is an astounding one, to say the least. However, before he got into politics, he first rose to fame with his memoir Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis in 2016.

Before becoming the Vice President of the US, he served in the military and had a short stint as a venture capitalist.

However, his life hasn’t always been an easy one. On the contrary, he experienced hardship from the moment his parents divorced and his mother started expressing violent tendencies.

Luckily, he had his half-sister, Lindsay by his side.

Following an incident during which their mother threatened to crash their car and kill both her children, Vance and his sister got adopted by their grandparents.

When Lindsay started her own family and moved, it was extremely hard for Vance, but he never blamed her, because she was still his support.

Eventually, he started hanging out with the wrong people who were involved with using drugs, but it was his grandmother who talked some sense into him. Vance said it was a moment he’d never forget.

“She actually told me in a very menacing voice, ‘Look, JD, I’ll give you a choice. You can either stop hanging out with these kids, or I’ll run them over with my car. And trust me, no one will ever find out,’” Vance told NPR.

After graduating from Middletown High School in 2003, Vance spent four years in the Marine Corps, serving as a combat correspondent in Iraq in 2005.

Retired Maj. Shawn Haney, JD Vance’s officer in charge at Cherry Point, North Carolina, told CNN that he and the rest of the marines knew Vance “would run for office one day.”

“He always did a great job where he was, but always looked forward to the next thing.”

Recalling the four years with the Marine Corps, Vance wrote in his memoir, “When I joined the Marine Corps, I did so in part because I wasn’t ready for adulthood. I didn’t know how to balance a checkbook, much less how to complete the financial aid forms for college.”