When Army Spe­cial­ist Marc Hall found out he was going to be rede­ployed to Iraq under the ​“stop loss” pro­gram, he put his feel­ings to song. ​“Stop Lossed” soon found its way to the Pen­ta­gon, and Hall wound up in jail await­ing a court mar­tial – for rapping.

'I explained that the rap was a freedom of expression thing. And that it was not a physical threat, nor any kind of threat whatsoever.'

Hall, aka hip-hop artist Marc Water­cus, enlist­ed in the Army in 2006 and served in Bagh­dad with the 3rd Infantry Divi­sion from Octo­ber 2007 to Decem­ber 2008. He was sta­tioned at Fort Stew­art, Ga., in July 2009, when he learned his unit would return to Iraq. So he poured his frus­tra­tion into a pro­fan­i­ty-laced rap. ​“It’s how I get my frus­tra­tions out,” he says, ​“instead of act­ing on them.” A CD of his song made its way to Col. Thomas Beane, Chief of the Army’s Enlist­ed Sys­tem Divi­sion, who in Sep­tem­ber 2009, sent it to Hall’s com­man­ders at Fort Stewart.

“My First Sergeant called me into his office to dis­cuss [the CD],” Hall wrote in a let­ter to sup­port­ers. ​“I explained that the rap was a free­dom of expres­sion thing. And that it was not a phys­i­cal threat, nor any kind of threat what­so­ev­er. I explained that it was just hip hop. He told me that he kind of liked the song.”

On Dec. 12, 2009, Hall, 34, was arrest­ed and charged with 11 counts of com­mu­ni­cat­ing threats under Arti­cle 134 of the Uni­form Code of Mil­i­tary Jus­tice, a catch-all pro­vi­sion cov­er­ing actions ​“to the prej­u­dice of good order and dis­ci­pline in the armed forces.”

Though Hall had a clean, even exem­plary record, he had made no secret of his unhap­pi­ness with being stop-lossed and, as a sol­dier on base, he was in a posi­tion to car­ry out the threats in his song. Still, more than four months had elapsed since Hall’s song had reached the Pen­ta­gon, and it was prob­a­bly no coin­ci­dence that, only days before his arrest, he had filed a griev­ance about his inad­e­quate med­ical treat­ment. In March, the Army shipped Hall to jail in Kuwait to await tri­al – far from his lawyers, friend­ly wit­ness­es and supporters.

The case turned on the ques­tion of how to inter­pret the words of a song, but here the Army’s case seemed weak. As any stu­dent of post­mod­ernism or com­mon sense knows, words can func­tion on more than one lev­el and mean­ing varies with context.

Mem­bers of the mil­i­tary retain many of their First Amend­ment rights. They may not encour­age vio­lence or join any orga­ni­za­tion whose pur­pose is vio­lence – except­ing the mil­i­tary – but with some restric­tions, they may say, write, pub­lish and read what they want. Hall had writ­ten and pro­duced his CD on his own time, out of uni­form, and not as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Army. And if his lyrics (below) were vio­lent and raw, so is much of the music sol­diers lis­ten to and so are the cadences they march to.

At Hall’s Arti­cle 32 hear­ing, the mil­i­tary equiv­a­lent to a grand jury pro­ceed­ing, the Army’s wit­ness­es tend­ed to strength­en his case more than theirs. He was jok­ing, said his bat­tle bud­dies. No one took it seri­ous­ly. It was no big deal. ​“Those who do under­stand hip hop didn’t take it as a threat,” Hall says, adding, ​“Those who don’t under­stand hip hop run the military.”

A court mar­tial was set for some time in April. But Hall, who was spend­ing his days fill­ing up sand­bags in a mil­i­tary jail in Kuwait, had had enough. He applied for a dis­charge in lieu of a court mar­tial, pled guilty to one of the charges against him, as required, and on April 17, was released from the Army with an oth­er-than-hon­or­able dis­charge and loss of most of his benefits.

Now back in the Unit­ed States, he plans to appeal to upgrade his dis­charge and to apply for treat­ment of a ser­vice-relat­ed dis­abil­i­ty. It seems only fair, he says. ​“I did my time. I just expressed myself.”

The Army main­tains that this was nev­er a First Amend­ment issue, and to some extent, Hall, his lawyers and sup­port­ers agree, charg­ing that the Army meant to make an exam­ple of him.

“I think that [the military’s top brass] care only about peo­ple accom­plish­ing the mis­sion,” says David Ges­pass, pres­i­dent of the Nation­al Lawyers Guild and Hall’s civil­ian lawyer. So when Hall became increas­ing­ly dis­trust­ful of the mis­sion and his role in it – he joined Iraq Vet­er­ans Against the War in Sep­tem­ber 2009 and filed for Con­sci­en­tious Objec­tion in Jan­u­ary – the Army, accord­ing to Ges­pass, was ​“less and less con­cerned with his well-being and more and more con­cerned about what they could do to deal with him in a way that would ensure that oth­ers would not go down the same path.”

“Stop Lossed” by SPC Marc Hall

Now this is real days

When s – t hit the airwaves

Some­body got­ta say

F – k you colonels, cap­tains, E‑7s and above Think you’re so much big­ger than I am I’ve been too good of an Amer­i­can Stop-lossed, Stop move­ment, Got me chas­ing If I do drugs, I’ll get kicked out, But if my time is out I can’t get out So the good die young I heard it out your mouth So f – k the Army And every­thing you’re all about

Like Oba­ma says ​“Some­body be held responsible”

But some of y’all gonna be held in the hos­pi­tals when­ev­er pos­si­ble To pur­sue my own jour­neys in life, through my own main obsta­cles Since I can’t pin­point the cul­pa­ble. They want me cause mis­ery loves com­pa­ny I’m gonna round them all up Even­tu­al­ly, eas­i­ly, walk right up peace­ful­ly And sur­prise them all Yes, yes ya’ll up against the wall Turn around, I got­ta a moth­erf – king mag­a­zine with thir­ty rounds On a three round burst, ready to fire down Still against the wall I grab my M‑4 Spray and watch all the bod­ies hit the floor I bet your nev­er stop loss nobody no more In your next life­time of course, no remorse Yeah You don’t stop till the Army is the only mil­i­tary branch That still got the stop loss in effect So the only thing I got to say Is pre­pare for the con­se­quences When peo­ple want to get out, let them get out.

Lis­ten to Hall rap here.