Didion's early education was not traditional. She attended kindergarten and first grade, but because her father was in the Army Air Corps during World War II and her family constantly relocated, she did not attend school regularly. In 1943 or early 1944, her family returned to Sacramento, and her father went to Detroit to negotiate defense contracts for World War II. Didion wrote in her 2003 memoir "Where I Was From" that moving so often made her feel like a perpetual outsider.