Dr Jimmy T (Gunny) LaBaume’s new book (The Betrayed: On Warriors, Cowboys and Other Misfits) is now available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kendall versions.
Book Description: Sometimes people do the wrong things for the right reasons. The author admits that to be the “story of his life” and openly shares much of it in this book.
Although the book is largely a historically based auto-biography, it is part fact and part fiction. In cases where identities needed to be protected, the “facts” necessary to that end are changed but without altering the accuracy of the description of the event or its historical significance.
It is a personal story. It is a cowboy-warrior’s story told in a cowboy-warrior’s language. It is the story of one man’s journey from bondage to freedom and from slavery to liberty. It is the gritty story of this man’s life-long education in the school of hard knocks as his journey took him from a sharecropper’s shack, through the rodeo arena and the boxing ring, across the football field and the drilling rig floor, into the Marines and two wars and ultimately culminating in the university laboratory and classroom (the most dangerous of all the aforementioned places).
Although woven around the experiences and adventures of one man, it is also the story of the people who lived during the period of time in American history that an entire generation was betrayed. It is the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place. It is the story of the betrayal of an entire generation of Americans and particularly the 40% (of the military aged males) of that generation that fought the Vietnam War.
The story is told mostly in the form vignettes—short scenes of a particular moment or event. Some are significant. Many are trivial. Some are humorous. Others are heart breaking–even nightmarish. But when sequenced, they tell a story that has a theme.
They chronicle an odyssey—an intellectual journey that begins with the author’s self-contradictory and delusional rationalizations for some of the horrible things that he did in the name of “mother, God and country” and ends with the realization that they were, indeed, horrible.
The conclusions are not mere “visions in the night.” They are a result of a very difficult process of shaking a lifetime of authoritarian indoctrination.
Some segments of the book will likely be interpreted as “whining” or “self-pity” and they probably are. But it is also a story of love, hate, happiness, sadness, anger, complacency, adventure, excitement, boredom, bravery, fear, duty, tyranny, incompetence, empire building, honor, cowardice, heroism and yes, betrayal.
The book is the product of a lifetime of experience and reflection with a little research and a healthy portion of labored discipline added. It was written with the white heat of passion that occurs during the moment when the world comes into focus for the first time. It will bring your world into better focus.
If the link doesn’t work for you, copy and paste the URL: http://www.amazon.com/The-Betrayed-Warriors-Cowboys-Misfits/dp/1490919740/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375133753&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=the+betrayed%3A+on+warriors%2C+cowboys+and+other+misfits+and+kendall
Wow! Glad to see this is in print, Gunny! I just ordered one.
On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 5:47 AM, Flyover-Press.com wrote:
> ** > Land & Livestock Interntional, Inc. posted: “Dr Jimmy T (Gunny) > LaBaumes new book (The Betrayed: On Warriors, Cowboys and Other Misfits) > is now available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kendall versions. Book > Description: Sometimes people do the wrong things for the right reasons. > The author”
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About damn time
Adrian Morley 575-631-3596
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Reblogged this on DICK.GAINES.AMERICAN! @ Gunny G's…Online Since 1997 and commented:
Dick G
*****
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Congratulations, Gunny! Is this your first book? I’ll have a copy for myself, as soon as I can get Kindle, Amazon and MasterCard on the same page (today, I hope.) Looking forward to the read. M
Morris Hart morris.hart@aol.com
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Actually, no. I have published several text books and a Handbook for Combat Shooters. They are all out of print but I am planning on publishing new editions. Thanks for the support. Since I have known you for a long time, I know you will enjoy the book.
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I finally got things worked out with Kindle et al and have and bought and read about five percent of your book. I grew up seven miles north of the Red River (and four miles from the hundredth meridian)–not a substantial difference in terrain or culture from what you experiencd. So, of course, it’s a nostalgic piece to me, for while my family was considerably better off financially, (my dad had a store in town) my mother’s folks, who owned their farm, did not get indoor plumbing, electricity or a telephone until just before I graduated from high school. My father possed a similar appreciation for good order and discipline and the proper application of punishment due. As was the mentality in that part of the country, we had little concern or even appreciation for one another’s social standing. If you were friends, you were friends, and many of my buds were country boys who lived as you describe. I often stayed the night with them, enjoying supper of biscuits and gravy or a tub of popcorn for supper (which was what they had to offer) and an evening of radio entertainment via a battery-powered radio (like my grandad’s), lit by a coal oil lamp. It’s truly difficult to imagine the great changes we’ve experienced in our lifetimes. Thanks for the memories, Gunny. Your reminiscences have pried memories from a brittle mind–memories, long forgotten, that needed revisiting. M
Morris Hart morris.hart@aol.com
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Indeed, it is (and was intended to be) mainly a story about the betrayal of our generation. I’m glad you are enjoying it.
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Is it ok if I cite a few of your articles providing I provide credit and sources back to wordpress.com?
My website is on the exact same topic as
yours and my readers would certainly learn from some of the knowledge you offer here.
Please let me know if this is okay with you.
Cheers
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Of course. That will be fine. And I will be checking our site out for the same reason. IMHO, it is as old Ben Franklin once said, “We must all hang together or else we are sure to hang separately.
Yours for freedom in our lifetimes.
jtl, 419
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That should have been “your” site and not “our” site.
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