Soldier Marc Hall’s Freedom Rap Song Lands him in Liberty
Jail
11 January 2010By Dave Lindorff
In the ironically named Liberty County Jail since
December 11 sits Army Specialist and Iraq War veteran
Marc Hall, a rap musician who had the audacity to
write a song attacking the Pentagon for subjecting him
to a so-called stop-loss order after he had finished
his Army tour and had returned from a posting in Iraq.
Hall, whose hip-hop alias is Marc Watercus, wrote the
song and sent it to the Pentagon as a protest. His
commander at Ft. Stewart initially had him arrested
after he went to his base commander to protest his
stop-loss order. He had planned to leave the service
when his contract was up on Feb. 27. The Pentagon then
upped the charges, claiming that in sending his song
to the Pentagon, he had “communicated a threat” to he
military. In the song lyrics, Hall says he will shoot
officers if he is stop-lossed.
The Pentagon reports that since 2001 it has prevented
120,000 soldiers from leaving the service using the
stop-loss policy, which critics say is being grossly
mis-used. Originally intended to keep the military
from having to withdraw active troops from the
battlefield if their contracts expire while they are
engaged in the field, the policy has become instead a
way of compensating from low enlistment and
re-enlistment rates, with stop-loss orders generally
hitting soldiers who have already returned home from
the wars and who, like Hall, who has a wife and child,
are preparing to return to civilian life.
The ironies of Hall’s incarceration and
prosecution--he is being held without bail, pending a
court-martial proceeding, which could be months
off--are stunning.
Liberty County, Georgia earned its name--it was
originally called St. John’s Parish by the Puritan
settlers who founded it--because back in the 1770s it
was a hotbed of revolutionary sentiment in a colony
that was largely populated by pro-British Loyalists.
Two signers of the Declaration of Independence hail
from the county. One, Dr. Lyman Hall, actually shares
Marc Hall’s surname, and was one of the most ardent of
revolutionists in America--a man who despised tyranny
boldly and who and actually went to the original
Continental Congress representing not Georgia, but
only his own county, because of lack of support from
the population of the broader colony. Hall was a
primary writer of the Constitution, which he allegedly
based upon a pamphlet he had been carrying with him
that had been penned by John Adams.
The story of Hall’s colleague Button Gwinnett, the
other Liberty County signer of the Declaration of
Independence, is even more reminiscent of the modern
Specialist Hall. Gwinnett, like Hall, was frustrated
and angry at his superiors. As commander of the
Georgia Militia during the American Revolution, he
disagreed with the man named to head the Georgia
Continental Battalion by the Continental Congress,
Lachlan McIntosh. Gwinnett, as governor or Georgia,
felt he should be commander in chief or Georgia’s
citizen soldiers. His unit’s subsequent subversion and
disobedience culminated in a duel fought between
Gwinnett and McIntosh, in which both men were gravely
wounded. Gwinnett died several days later of infection
resulting from his wound.
Rapper Hall, who has taken a bold public stand against
the Pentagon’s brutal stop-loss program, which many
critics have said is nothing but an unofficial draft,
stands in the proud tradition of Gwinnett and Hall.
Although his song vows violent retribution if he is
stop-lossed, Hall insists it was “just hip-hop.” He
says he told his sergeant that he opposed the war in
Iraq, that he would not go back there if ordered to
go, and that his song was simply a “free expression of
how people feel about the Army and its stop-loss
policy.” He says that his sergeant told him he
actually “liked the song” and didn’t consider it to be
a threat.
Attorney Jim Klimanski, a member of the National
Lawyers Guild and the Military Law Task Force, who is
following Hall’s case, has told journalist Dahr Jamail
that the military is “overreacting,” and that Hall’s
song is protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee
of free speech.
Klimanski told Jamail that Hall and other stop-loss
victims look at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, see
that they are unending quagmires, and think that with
stop-loss, they are doomed to stay in the service
until it kills them. He says Hall’s song is saying, “I
have no control over my life. I could be in here
forever. We're not talking about a war that is going
to be over next year. We're talking about a war that
could go on forever. So poor old Marc Hall could
possibility be in the military forever. Once
enlistment starts dropping, the Army maintains troop
levels by keeping the ones they have. If you're not
going to go to one place, you're going to another, but
you're not going to get out."
Meanwhile people should come to Hall’s defense. Call
your Senators and Representatives and demand that he
be released. Call the jail at 912-876-6411 to demand
an end to this illegal confinement. Also send letters
of protest to: CPT Cross, Commander, B 2-7 INF BN,
Fort Stewart GA 31314.
And let any Young men and women you know who are being
tempted by recruiters to sign up for the military,
with promises of college funds, and skills training
and signing bonuses, that it is all a big lie. Tell
them they could, like Hall and many others, be
prevented from using their GI benefits by stop-loss.
They could be kept prisoner in uniform at the
military’s discretion, as Hall and 120,000 other
troops have been.
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