![\"You](\"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/images\/26-0114-s2p-llpdontkill-800x600.webp\")
Image caption: Cover, “You Shouldn\u2019t Have to Kill to Get Ahead: Reimagining Wealth, Power and Belonging in America.”<\/em><\/p>\n
A working-class kid from Naugatuck, Connecticut, Rivers saw firsthand how money determined opportunity. At 17, he enlisted in the Army National Guard. By his twenties, he was leading combat missions in Afghanistan, watching Soldiers lose limbs in blasts, and asking the same haunting questions his troops did: Why are we still here? What are we dying for?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou Shouldn\u2019t Have to Kill to Get Ahead\u201d combines memoir, military leadership lessons and policy insight. Rivers shows how wealth, power and belonging\u2014the three forces he identifies as central to the American experiment\u2014have been hijacked by elites. The result, he argues, is a country where working Americans must fight wars abroad or grind themselves down at home just to survive.<\/p>\n
The book unfolds in three parts: his childhood and military service, his years studying public policy at Georgetown and seeing our policy systems in action while running for office and finally his blueprint for building a government that works for people, not billionaires.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what it\u2019s like to live paycheck to paycheck, to serve your country, and to wonder if the sacrifice is worth it. This book is about charting a way out of that trap\u2014for me, for my Soldiers and for every American family,\u201d Rivers says.<\/p>\n
Rivers argues that the US must decouple wealth from political power, build a new marketplace of ideas and foster a sense of belonging that can unite rather than divide. Without these changes, he warns, America risks sliding further into political violence and economic despair.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou Shouldn\u2019t Have to Kill to Get Ahead\u201d is a wake-up call and a rallying cry. It urges Americans across the spectrum to demand a fairer, more resilient future\u2014one where service, sacrifice and dignity don\u2019t come at the cost of survival.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe average American family shouldn\u2019t need two and a half jobs just to survive,\u201d Rivers says. \u201cWe need leaders who will fight for working people with the urgency of someone who\u2019s actually lived it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Rivers\u2019s memoir, \u201cYou Shouldn\u2019t Have to Kill to Get Ahead\u201d, is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other major online booksellers. Discover more at https:\/\/www.chrisrivers.com\/book<\/a>.<\/p>\n ABOUT LEGACY LAUNCH PAD PUBLISHING<\/strong><\/p>\n Legacy Launch Pad Publishing is a boutique founder-led book publishing company trusted by high-income entrepreneurs to build seven-figure authority. Its authors have become Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling writers, landed TEDx talks based on their books and appeared on such shows as Today and Good Morning America as well as in major outlets, including The New York Times and USA Today. For more information, visit https:\/\/www.legacylaunchpadpub.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LOS ANGELES, Calif., Jan. 14, 2026 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — In his new book, “You Shouldn’t Have to Kill to Get Ahead: Reimagining Wealth, Power and Belonging in America” (ISBN: 978-1968339180 [paperback]; 978-1968339173 [ebook]; 978-1968339197 [hardcover]; Legacy Launch Pad Publishing), author, Army Veteran and former political candidate Chris Rivers lays bare the broken promises of the American Dream and offers a path forward for a nation at a breaking point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8460,"featured_media":131729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,12804,1,10,37,187,559],"tags":[9466,10473],"class_list":["post-132288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-publishing-news","category-ap","category-business-news","category-california-news","category-entertainment-news","category-los-angeles-news","category-products-news","tag-memoir","tag-non-fiction-book","has-post-title","has-post-date","no-post-category","no-post-tag","no-post-comment","has-post-author"],"acf":[],"views":1598,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8460"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132288"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132293,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132288\/revisions\/132293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}