7/25/2005

New incredible story at Euphoric Reality

By: Cao, Filed under: General , Kit @ 4:53 am

Kit and Heidi have put a considerable effort in time, research, emails and phone calls in putting this story together. I look forward to reading the entire story. This part of the introduction…the rest can be found at Euphoric Reality.

Brother Against Brother, Chapter 1, Introduction: The first in a seven-part series about jealousy, truth, and honor between men who fought in a place called Vietnam.

Written by Kit Jarrell and Heidi Thiess

Throughout its history, the United States military has been home to some of the greatest warriors found anywhere in the world. Story after story can be found of men who distinguished themselves on the battlefield; their actions a testament to the bravery and sacrifice that has made and kept our nation free. All one needs to do is read the National Archives; the military websites; the award citations of soldiers like Medal of Honor recipient Sgt First Class Paul Smith and Silver Star recipient Leigh Ann Hester to know the caliber of men and women that have unselfishly stepped forward, answering the call of our country’s defense.

check out the rest at Euphoric Reality

9 Responses to “New incredible story at Euphoric Reality”

  1. euphoricreality.net » Brother Against Brother: Chapter 1 Says:

    […] h Sheikh of Pork In The Bullpen linked with Vietnam War Story Cao’s Blog linked with New Incredible Story at Euphoric Reality Basil’s Blog linked with Breakfast 07/25/05 GM’s Corner l […]

  2. Don and Annette Hall: cutting and pasting across the blogosphere Says:

    Now that Kit Jarrell and Heidi Thiess of Euphoric Reality have apparently finished their now 10-part series, which portrays us as villains, and Gary Linderer and his band of brothers as selfless heroes, we will be posting our rebuttal on the web next week. We will place a notice on Wizbang and on the Thiess/Jarrell site when it’s ready and give a pointer to the web location.

    The conduct of these two women in writing their “Brother Against Brother” series has demonstrated beyond a doubt that they are ill qualified to tell this story fairly. Our mistake was believing Thiess and Jarrell when they said they were “investigative journalists.” Instead, they have clearly demonstrated that they ascribe to the Michael Moore school of blogging and employ the Dan Rather method of investigative journalism.

    We have also learned a great lesson that you can’t tell a blog by its cover. We should have requested a copy of THEIR DD214’s before we began dealing with them in depth after they responded to our original email and said they wanted to investigate our allegations against Gary Linderer. Their DD214’s would have given us a better idea just how qualified these two women actually were to do a story of this magnitude and complexity. In their zeal to support Mr. Linderer and his buddies, they have deliberately misstated important facts, omitted inconvenient facts that support our allegations against him, and have engaged in extreme hyperbole and mischaracterization, the likes of which one usually sees on extremist left-wing blogs.

    Our rebuttal next week will illustrate exactly why they are ill qualified to investigate anything to do with combat operations in Vietnam, and, in our opinion, anything to do with combat operations period. We will show readers that Thiess and Jarrell have been suckered in by Gary Linderer and his very vocal group of supporters, and that they have engaged in the very same sort of disinformation tactics that Linderer and his men have employed with great success over the years.

    Because of their behavior, it is apparent to us that Thiess and Jarrell are of a character that causes them to feel a deep kinship with Linderer and his men, and as they got to know Linderer and his supporters more fully, they felt a deep desire to be accepted by them. It’s easier to go with the group against the two than it is to stand with the two against the group. And, if you have to distort facts or omit damning evidence in order to accomplish that, well, the ends justify the means. The irony is that these two gullible and mendacious women have helped Gary Linderer’s small group of “Vietnam fabulists” embellish the 20 November 1968 story even further, even to the laughable point of contradicting what they wrote in their books.

    As we’ve said over and over again, if a thousand people tell a lie, it doesn’t make it the truth. Stay tuned…

  3. Cao Says:

    Or if two people say a lie often enough…doesn’t make it the truth, either.

  4. The MaryHunter Says:

    Hmmm. Michael Moore. Dan Rather. That’s pretty stiff, for two women who chose to investigate the allegations, to try and get a full story, rather than to run with just half of it.

    I suppose I’ve no choice but to Stay Tuned

  5. HE!D! Says:

    MaryHunter,

    Yeah - you’d better “Stay Tuned”…or else… They’ll rip you up for not doing what THEY say.

  6. Kenn Miller Says:

    At last we have Annette Hall’s response—posted as commentary to Chapter One and again to Chapter Ten. True to Mrs. Hall’s accustomed form, it is more a personal attack than a response to anything in Brother Against Brother. But then, what else do the Halls have at this point, beyond personal attacks? After years of trumpeting the documents they claimed to have backing their contentions about the bloody events of 20 November, 1968, and the character of Gary Linderer, all of the Hall’s “documentary evidence” has been obliterated by the many documents that the Halls somehow (willfully?) overlooked, and that Kit Jarrell and Heidi Thiess managed to find. Heidi and Kit also managed to find and interview many survivors of the battle, eyewitnesses to the battle, and many others who listened to it on military radio nets as it was happening. The Halls have absolutely none of this testimony. They never have, and never will. The Halls’ various imaginary renderings of those bloody events never had much (if any) credibility. And now they have none. What other response is available to the Halls, except for their normal personal attacks? Silence, perhaps? An apology along the lines of the one they once promised Kit and Heidi if they were proven to be wrong? Well, they’ve been proven to have been gravely and maliciously wrong, but there is no apology from the Halls. And now Annette’s silence has been broken.

    Annette Hall accuses Kit and Heidi of having written a series “which portrays us as villains, and Gary Linderer and his band of brothers as selfless heroes…” Annette and Don Hall are, rightfully, not even mentioned in the chapters that deal with the 20 November, 1968, battle. But once they do appear in Brother Against Brother, once they begin their vendetta against Gary Linderer and all connected with them, they most certainly do come across as villains. Annette blames Kit and Heidi for that portrayal. But almost all of the material in Brother Against Brother that deals with the Halls is either in Don’s words or Annette’s—-and almost all of this reeks with misrepresentation, slander, paranoia, viciousness, and attempted character assassination. Mrs. Hall writes, reasons, and spells much better than her husband, but when it comes to jealous bile and virulence, the two of them are in a league they share with no one else I’ve ever encountered. If the Halls come across as villains, it is because the Halls showcase their own villainy in their almost every word and action. All Kit and Heidi did was print what the Halls themselves had sent out to them and other people, but that was enough to show the Halls’ true character. As for Gary Linderer and the other men—Lurps, aviators, reaction force, and even North Vietnamese soldiers—who fought in that 20 November, 1968, battle that Annette Hall and her husband have spent years trying to portray as a fake contact: if they are “heroes” it is their actions that day that made them so, not anything Kit or Heidi wrote about them these many years later. It certainly isn’t a judgement Annette Hall or her husband are qualified to make. If Gary Linderer has a “band of brothers” it is because Gary has earned the brotherhood of many. Annette Hall’s husband, poor Donald, on the other hand, has no brothers left anymore and no real friends either. Donald Hall has done much to earn his outcast status, and he deserves it deeply. But those of us who have had to deal with the Halls over the years know to give Mrs. Hall her share of credit for Donald’s sad state. Her nagging, goading, encouragement and irrepressible tendency to speak for him have surely played an instrumental part in his downfall.

    Along with being the only literate writer involved, was Annette Hall also the animating spirit behind their self published book, I Served? And was it Annette who encouraged Don to submit the notorious “Vulture Flight” story from that book to Behind the Lines? For years Annette Hall has been commenting on military matters about which she knows only what her mentally jumbled husband tells her. But in her commentary she writes this of Kit and Heidi: “We should have requested a copy of THEIR DD214’s before we began dealing with them in depth after they responded to our original email and said they wanted to investigate our allegations against Gary Linderer. Their DD214’s would have given us a better idea just how qualified these two women actually were to do a story of this magnitude and complexity.”

    Amazing! The blind stupid gall of this woman to write such a thing and post it on a site where every reader already knows what sort of person she is! Kit and Heidi are veterans. They do have DD214s—and they are under no obligation to show them to the Halls. But where is Annette Hall’s DD214? As far I know, she is not a veteran—except perhaps by very, very weak injection. If she is a military veteran, why doesn’t she send out as many copies of her DD214 as she did of her smear sheet against Gary Linderer, so that all the thousands of people to whom she libeled Gary will be able to judge her qualifications?

    In her commentary Annette writes: “it is apparent to us that Thiess and Jarrell are of a character that causes them to feel a deep kinship with Linderer and his men…” Mrs. Hall is not a stupid woman, at least not if her husband is setting the baseline for stupidity. Does she not realize what a fine compliment it is to write that Heidi and Kit are of a character to feel a deep kinship with Gary Linderer and men like Riley Cox, Jim Venable, Jim Bacon, Frank Souza, Mike Reiff, Art Herringhausen, Terry Clifton, Mike Reiff, Tony Tercero and the other men of the reaction force, the aviators who flew that day, and the hundreds—no, thousands—of other people, veterans and civilians alike, who consider Gary Linderer a true gentleman and a brother?

    Mrs. Hall should remember that Heidi Thiess and Kit Jarrell started looking into all of this on her instigation, not Gary Linderer’s. She obviously didn’t expect them to really investigate, nor did she expect them to write as well as they do. But she should have expected at least some minimal amount of intelligence, honesty, and basic decency. Kit and Heidi have abundant reserves of all those qualities. Mrs. Hall may have some intelligence—particularly compared to her husband. But she seems to lack even a shred of honesty and decency—and doesn’t seem to have much grasp of reality, either. Because she lacks these qualities herself, she apparently didn’t expect to find them in Kit and Heidi. Mrs. Hall made a major mistake there!

    Mrs. Hall and her husband can—and probably will—continue to threaten people. They can post whatever they like on their website, and the idly curious may visit their site, but no one will ever believe them again. They can claim to have unused and secret hidden information and documents they’ve been holding back, but again no one will believe them. Their credibility in all matters is gone forever. They can—and probably will—threaten to dig into peoples’ private lives for things to use against them, and perhaps they will manage to hurt someone or someone’s family. They can continue to focus their lives around that Great Satan, Gary Linderer, but their devotion will not be rewarded. They can keep snapping and snarling and clawing themselves ever deeper into the pit they have dug for themselves, but they will be alone in that pit. They will never recover whatever honor and whatever place among decent humanity they may have once had. Donald will never dare to show his face at any military reunion or veterans function where anyone is likely to recognize him, and Annette will most likely suffer the utter humiliation of remaining married to Don for the rest of her life.

    Mrs. Hall can rage and slander and threaten all she wants. She and her husband have been exposed as the spiteful and poisonous clowns that they are. No one respects her, no one fears her, and except for laughs, no one will listen to her anymore.

    Kenn Miller
    F/58th LRP

  7. SSgt Yatahey Says:

    Is Mrs Hall and her old man related to either of these people?

    John “HANOI FONDA” Skerry is guilty of war crimes and lying to the people — he should be strung up in a tree and shot at sunrise … Stephen Pearcy needs to be in the next tree.

  8. Cao Says:

    Thanks, Kenn Miller, for coming over and clarifying some of this. It’s readily apparent that the Halls have their own version of history that they’re trying to impose on everyone. Kit and Heidi had the audacity to actually research their claims! Imagine that! And imagine that they’d have the nerve to publish what they found out which is contrary to the Halls’ version of events! Woah! Considering the Halls’ propensity for lawsuits, that takes some real cajones!

  9. Cao Says:

    Don Hall’s awards and citations:
    National Defense Service Ribbon
    Vietnam Service Medal
    Parachute Badge
    Combat Infantryman Badge
    Bronze Star Medal w/ Device

    Gary Linderer’s awards and citations:

    Silver Star
    Purple Heart (2)
    Combat Infantryman Badge w/ 2 OS Bars
    Bronze Star w/ Valor Device
    Bronze Star
    Vietnam Service Medal w/ 4 Bronze Service Stars
    Vietnam Campaign Medal w/ Device
    Army Commendation w/ Valor Device
    Army Conduct w/ 1 Oak Leaf Cluster
    Parachute Badge
    Air Medal
    Expert w/ M16
    Sharpshooter w/ M14
    National Defense Service Ribbon

    Don Hall is a sore loser. Come see more at Euphoric Reality

    Chapter 1: Introduction
    Chapter 2: Ambush in the Ruong Ruong
    Chapter 3: Nowhere To Go
    Chapter 4: The Absence of All Hope
    Chapter 5: To Save Our Brothers
    Chapter 6: The Legacy of 20 November 1968
    Chapter 7: The Accusations, Pt. 1
    Chapter 8: The Accusations, Pt. 2
    Chapter 9: The Present-Day War
    Chapter 10: Hope For Future Peace

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