Hamilton, a six-footer, played on the Simon Gratz High School baseball team and was on the track team before graduating in 1965. He tried to enlist in the Army, but was rejected because he was too young, and worked as a welder for several months. He was drafted into the Army in January 1967, and was sent to Vietnam in December 1967 and assigned to Company C of the 2nd Battalion, 327th infantry, 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. "The last battle hangs with me like a bad dream all the time," he wrote his sister shortly before he died on May 5, 1968, in the hamlet of Phu Bai, Quang Tri Province. The 20-year-old specialist four, a grenadier and rifleman, was posthumously awarded the Silver Star. He was survived by his foster parents, a brother and a sister.