Damn Right It Hurts!: A Virginia Hillbilly Becomes a World War II Hero - Paperback

Russell Gilley, a hillbilly born and reared in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, is desperate to join the army to fight the Nazis. He persuades his mother, Oda, to sign the papers required to allow him to enlist even though he is under age. She does so with great trepidation, remembering her brother-in-law who lost his life to mustard gas in World War I. Russ arrives in Belgium in time to fight in the Battle of the Bulge at Elsenborn Ridge with the 99th Army Division. He earns both a Bronze Medal and a Purple Heart before losing his life. Oda is presented with The Gold Star--the medal well known to mothers of soldiers during that time.

Damn Right It Hurts is about the life--and death--of Russell Gilley, a hillbilly who grew up in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains and who, in 1944, desperately wanted to enlist in the army. The story is told in a series of flashbacks as Russ lies near death in an army hospital reliving his life through blurry dreams. After his death, the story continues as his mother, Oda, attempts to deal with her grief at the loss of her favored son and questions her decision to sign the papers required for Russ to join the army.

Author Wade Gilley was six years old and living with his "Granny Oda" in a home near Fries, Virginia when, in January of 1945, two army officers delivered the notice about Russ. In the years that followed, Wade was a witness to his grandmother's anguish and grief.

Yet Damn Right It Hurts is more than just the story of the Gilley family. It is an insider's moving and intimate glimpse into the lives of the Scots-Irish people who populated Virginia's Appalachian Mountains during the Great Depression.