SING A SONG
OF MAYHEM

Should you find yourself in an overstretched military that forces you to continue service beyond your intended tour-of-duty, be sure to channel your frustration into violent aggression toward your target civilization. Sing a song about it, and you just may find yourself in jail alongside U.S. Army Specialist Marc Hall. Hall, aka Marc Watercus, used hip hop to express the view many of America’s enlisted share toward their army’s stop-loss program and wound up court-martialled.

Using workaday hip hop murder fantasies and bad swears, Hall’s song struck the wrong chord with the people at the Pentagon, to whom Hall sent a copy after receiving notification he was being shipped back to Iraq. He says the song wasn’t intended as a threat and believed his commanding officers understood that.

“My first sergeant said he actually liked the song,” Hall recalled. “He and my commander just recommended me for mental counselling.” Hall now stands accused of making threats and “planning on shooting the brigade or battalion commanders.”

Jason Hurd, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War working in Hall’s defence, says the military’s over-reaction was prompted by the Ft. Hood shootings.

by SCOTT SAXON