Category Archives: Alternative Military History

Friesen Press Announces “Be All You Can Be” by Shawn E. Hamilton

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http://www.einpresswire.com/press-releases/preview/1871430

VETERAN PLEADS: DO NOT BLINDLY SACRIFICE YOUR LIFE FOR YOUR COUNTRY! Author Publishes WWII Pilot Father’s Legacy and Warning

SACRAMENTO, CA, USA, October 19, 2014 /EINPresswire.com/ — SACRAMENTO, 19 October, 2014—The belief that it’s noble to support the nation’s military regardless of circumstances will perhaps always prevail. It’s a seductive patriotic ideal, but over the course of our nation’s history, the US military has been increasingly used to protect the interests of the rich and powerful rather than liberty and justice for all. Journalist Shawn Hamilton has written his new book, Be All You Can Be, as a wake-up call to the nation, using his WWII veteran father’s story as the revelry bugle.

A person who is willing to sacrifice his life ‘for his country’ is merely a dupe in the profit game of the military-industrial complex.”

— Major Ralph E.   Hamilton, 1976

 

A Kriegie’s Prayer –Ralph Hamilton

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Oh, God, I ask of you in humble prayer,

As I lie in torment far from home,

Keep safe my loving family over there;

Make lighter theirs—this burden

Which they bear.

I ask not why this plan for war was lain,

Nor question your divine authority,

But couldn’t you have had the flak refrain

That last time I went down to

Strafe a train?

Oh, God, just slightly overflow thy cup,

And speed me from this vermin-prison’s bed.

Please, God, release me from

This land of Krupp

Before these God-damned bedbugs eat me up!

Note: Ralph wrote this under a dim night light, on toilet paper in the German prison camp at Moosburg. He said the bedbugs had chewed his wrists, neck, and ankles to a “painful mass of itching misery” and forced him from his bunk.

“Be All You Can Be”

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Released on March 24th, 2014 through Friesen Press:  Be All You Can Be

Be All You Can Be cover

“There is something sad about a person who blindly sacrifices his life ‘for his country,’ for he is unaware of the real issues. If a person can grasp the truth about war, it can’t help but color his thinking on such issues as draft dodging. The name draft dodger suggests the evasion of a just debt or obligation. In reality, a draft dodger is either a person who rejects military service on religious or moral grounds—or plainly doesn’t want to allow himself to be killed. Any of those reasons should be good enough, and I don’t think that he should be persecuted or prosecuted.

A person who is willing to sacrifice his life ‘for his country’ is merely a dupe in the profit game of the military-industrial complex. A man who has the courage to stand up against such twisted idealism and refuse to be sacrificed for profiteers is no coward. My opinion of the draft dodger differs from the opinion of many of my peers, but then, my generation is probably one of the biggest collections of fools on record.”

— Major Ralph E. Hamilton, WW2 Veteran, 1976