According to Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist, an Oakland-based organization dedicated to supporting military objectors like Hall, he was not jailed for the song, but was instead jailed “in retaliation for his formal complaint of inadequate mental health services available to him at Fort Stewart. The Army used an angry song that Spc. Hall, a combat veteran of the Iraq War suffering from post-traumatic stress, had produced criticizing the stop-loss policy as the pretext.” What put the 34-year-old New York City native in the brig were, according to Paterson, Hall’s persistent assertions of inadequate mental health care that culminated in a December 7 complaint to the Army Investigator General. Just five days after that, Hall was charged with violating “good order and discipline” at Fort Stewart, Georgia, and was shipped out of the country for a court martial in Kuwait. On Feb. 20 Hall wrote, “A charge that was not a threat before, but all of a sudden became a threat now. I communicated a need for mental evaluation – not a threat.”

Hall, a soldier out of Fort Stewart in Georgia, recorded a rap song last July called “Stop Loss” after he was notified that his military contract was being extended. Army soldiers who are “stop-lossed” must complete additional tours of duty. In his song, Hall raps about walking up to soldiers and “surprising them all” with 30 rounds set to a “three-round burst.” Another lyric says: “Still against the war / I grab my M4/ Spray and watch all the bodies hit the floor/ I bet you’ll never stop-loss nobody no more.” He sent a copy to the Pentagon, posted it on his Web site and gave copies to soldiers in his unit. In December, Jim Klimaski, of Klimaski & Associates, got a call from Hall, and he represented him in civilian court until last month. At the time, he was seeking a trial in the U.S. But that request was denied and now Hall is being held at Camp Arifajan in Kuwait awaiting a command decision on whether to go to trial.