UPDATED: Brother Against Brother: Don & Annette Halls' Rebuttal

Note: This post is part of an ongoing saga of defamation, libel, and smear tactics from a Vietnam veteran against his own. The writers of this blog have been dragged into the mess because we wrote the real story and exposed Don C. Hall and his wife Annette. Their accusations against Gary Linderer and the men of F/58th Long Range Patrol are not only unfounded, but steeped in malice. The reasons behind this are for speculation, but evidence indicates that it began when Mr. Hall was found to be dishonest in his book about events that took place while he was in Vietnam.

For more information on F/58th's battle with the 4th and 5th Regiments of the North Vietnamese Army on 20 November 1968, Operation Homecoming USA or the 75th Ranger Regiment Association, please clink the appropriate links.

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Kit and I had already decided not to pimp the Halls' link to their website; especially since they made it very clear to us that they intended to "ruin us". So, hey - why give them a friendly helping hand? However, we have considerately placed their entire rebuttal, inclusive of all errors, ommissions, typos, poor formatting, and *ahem* discrepancies, etc. here on Euphoric Reality for your reading pleasure. My only regret in posting this on the Halls' behalf is that Kit won't be able to see it until Friday - when she will have her internet access installed in her new home. I've not yet read this rebuttal in all its glory, but will do so in about an hour or two, after I get the kiddos off to school. Ta-ta!

PS: For new readers, the Brother Against Brother series we published this summer is the place to start.

Note by Kit, 081805, 1528 hours:

The Halls decided to slap us with a cease and desist letter. Why? Who knows? At any rate, they've now engaged in a complete campaign against us personally, threatening us with a copyright infringement suit if we didn't take down this post.

In my personal opinion, they should really pay attention to how many t's they leave uncrossed before they go threatening people with legal action, but that's fine too. I'm always in a mood to be amused, and they're definitely doing that for me.

Since we don't feel like playing their game, we've cropped down this little pile of spew to a manageable level that counts as "limited excerpts". It's probably a good thing, since the original was entirely too long and filled with grammatical problems anyway. I decided to keep the good parts, where they're slamming Heidi and I personally.

Keep in mind, Mr. and Mrs. Hall, that transparency is something that is embedded in this blog. If you send it to us, we'll print it. Expect your cease and desist letter to show up here later today. Oh, and those voicemails will be up tomorrow. Have fun.

Update by HE!D!, 081805, 1627

Here's their silly cease-and-desist email, which I only just found today buried in 446 emails in an old yahoo address I no longer use:

From: "Annette@i-served.com"
To: "'Kit Jarrell'" , "Heidi Thiess"
CC: "'Don C. Hall'"
Subject: Copyright infringement notice
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:22:41 -0700

Heidi Thiess and Jeannette "Kit" Jarrell:

You have willfully and flagrantly infringed upon our copyright. You do not have permission to post on your Euphoric Reality blog site (or anywhere else) the full text of the material on our web page at http://www.i-served.com/GaryLinderer/GaryLinderer_BloggerGate.htm. We did not post that text on your web site. You copied it and posted illegally on your blog site. You do not have our permission to post ANYTHING on your site from our web site, other than standard, limited excerpts as allowed by copyright law.

We provided link information to our page in a comment on your site, so your readers could go directly to our site to read our text. You removed that comment. You can NOT extract the text from the site and post it in full on yours as an alternative.

Cease this infringement IMMEDIATELY, or you will be subject to legal action. You do not own that text, nor have we given you any verbal or written permission to post it on your site. You have the legal right to use only limited excerpts, not the full text. Cease and desist NOW. Pull it down.

Hard copy notice of this infringement will be sent by USPS. Please consult your attorney for information on how to protect yourself from civil liability in the future. We suggest that you let your readers know that copyright infringement carries penalties.

Annette R. Hall
Don C. Hall

And to compound their idiocy, and make sure more people know how ill-equipped they are concerning legal matters, they've posted the following similar drivel on Wizbang:

Heidi Thiess and Kit Jarrell of Euphoric Reality have deleted my comment on their blog site that directs people to the web-page location of my response to their BAB series (that comment was the same as our previous post in this thread). Instead, they infringed on our copyright and extracted the entire content of our web page and posted it on their site, omitting the URL address. They did not have our permission to do that. We do not have a comments feature active on that web page, so their readers were supposed to go to our web site, read my response there, and then make any comments about it on Euphoric Reality that they wished to make. Kit and Heidi like to control things and delete comments they don’t like and suppress evidence they don’t want the public to know about (which is what they did in their BAB story). That’s their prerogative, but they don’t have a right to interfere with their readers’ going to my response on our site by copying it from our site and posting it on theirs, minus the URL. Their goal was to make it less convenient for their readers to know where it’s located.

Copyright law allows excerpting from content, but not full-out plagiarism. On 8/16/05, we sent them an e-mail notice (followed up in a letter mailed to them) demanding that they stop the infringement and remove our copyright-protected content from their site.

Wizbang readers are welcome to read my response to the Thiess/Jarrell BAB series directly on our site and post their comments here on Wizbang. Have at it. Again, this is the link: http://www.i-served.com/GaryLinderer/GaryLinderer_BloggerGate.htm

Don Hall
Posted by: Don Hall at August 17, 2005 01:48 PM

They imagine that tons of people are actually reading that archived post of Wizbang's - which has been buried for over two months (ancient history by blogging standards). And further, that people are waiting with bated breath for them to post and repost their URL ( in case they didn't get it the FIRST time) *sigh* Here is my ever-so-patient response to their concerns:

Contrary to what Don and Annette Hall allege above, we did not remove their comment; we simply redirected OUR readers to the full, unabridged copy of the content of their rebuttal on OUR site. We did so for one simple reason: to make it EASIER for our readers to read and comment, without having to flip and flop between websites.

Additionally, again contrary to what the Halls wrote above, we did NOT remove their precious URL. It is intact within their original comment. The Halls have become incredibly proficient at lying about the smallest, most petty details - and yet their attention to detail failed to detect that their URL is still in their comment.

Finally, we have, in writing, blanket permission from the Halls to use anything from their book, their documentary, their notes, and their website. So thank you for that.

Considering the Halls' rabid pursuit of publicity, I should think they'd be happy that their lies are posted in full view on not one - but now TWO separate online sources.

BTW, we took the above actions only after having consulted with our legal advisor, as the Halls have belatedly admonished us to do. WE had ampple opportunity to get several legal opinions, since the Halls trumpeted their intended post date on our site. The bottom line is this: the Halls posted the link on OUR site to directly offer OUR readership their rebuttal of OUR published series. We are fully within our legal rights to do as we did.

Note: to those wishing to read the absolutely scintillating commentary on the Halls' so-called "rebuttal" - which is really just a 15-page long tirade of personal character assassination, rather than a refutation of the facts, go here. We've also published Our Final Word on the entire sordid affair. And now we're done.

Posted by: HE!D! at August 18, 2005 02:40 PM

*****EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE IS BY DON & ANNETTE HALL*****


Response from Don Hall to the BAB series

Posted August 15, 2005

"We spent the evening drinking and getting totally blown away. We raised a lot of hell, and I guess I probably overdid it with the war stories. They must have been impressed, because most offered their sisters to me before the night was over. Audie Murphy didn’t have a thing on me. Well, how were you suppose to act around air force personnel?”

- page 217, “The Eyes of the Eagle” by Gary Linderer

Kit Jarrell of Euphoric Reality served as a mechanic in the Air Force.

Kit Jarrell and Heidi Thiess of Euphoric Reality decided to take a Michael Moore approach to writing their Brother Against Brother series, and emulated Dan Rather’s method of investigative journalism, including using as “evidence,” gossip and innuendo spread by people with personal agendas.

If Thiess and Jarrell believe their actions are acceptable journalistic practice, then they should go apply for a job at The New York Times. Jason Blair’s former position may still be open. They’re well qualified to fill it.

Apparently, Thiess and Jarrell thought their BAB story would elevate them into the blog stratosphere and get the attention of the mainstream media and the cable TV networks. That remains to be seen. As of the date of this post it appears that they’ve been interviewed about this only by fellow blogger and amateur internet radio broadcaster, Kender. Otherwise, they’ve hit a big, fat media dud.



Why? Because they distorted the truth beyond all recognition in their quest to support Gary “Audie Murphy” Linderer and elevate him and his buddies to mythical status. And, the ugly, defamatory, outlandish comments they and the Linderer crowd have made on their blog about Annette and me have caused decent, intelligent people to cringe.

Jarrell and Thiess claim they’re writing a book now, so it looks like Linderer may have enticed another two groupies into his entourage by offering them the chance of a book deal (his SOP). For some people, it doesn’t take much to sell their souls. We wouldn’t advise them to start planning their book tour just yet.

We think that once Jarrell and Thiess got sucked into the Linderer crowd and began to dream of a possible book deal, they decided that it would be far easier to make a big name for themselves by turning the 20 November 1968 incident into a story of epic proportions.

In order to promote their version of 20 November 1968, Thiess and Jarrell have to convince readers that records kept by the G2/G3 section of the 101st Airborne Division can’t be trusted, are inaccurate, and do not apply to F/58th LRP. (This is a reverse of what Dan Rather did. He touted fake documents as being accurate and relevant, and staked his career on their reliability. Thiess and Jarrell tout authentic documents from the 101st Airborne Division as being inaccurate and irrelevant. They are staking their careers on this.)

This is yet another example of Jarrell’s and Thiess’s boundless ignorance of the history of the Vietnam War as it pertains to this story.

[Admin Note: Due to the vicious and fallacious lies contained within the next two paragraphs, we are removing them to protect the innocent.

Don and Annette Hall have stridently demanded to hear from a commander about the events of 20 November:

Only the commanders at that time can tell us what actually went on after the heavy team was extracted from the field and brought back to the rear.

The Halls never bothered to actually FIND a commander to question. WE did. WE extensively interviewed the C.O. of F/58th LRP and he not only verified the events of 20 November, he added extensive new information to our research which was previously unknown.

Disregarding the facts in their rebuttal, the Halls launched into an intensly personal, vile, and MALICIOUSLY SPECULATIVE attack on a man they've never spoken to and know nothing about. We will not passively sit by while they denigrate the superlative career and service of a stellar Army officer, just because they desperately need to discredit the highest ranking officer still alive to corroborate the events of 20 November. The Halls are so averse to the truth, that they stoop so low as to grotesquely attack the motives and intent of an officer who, until we interviewd him, was never even aware that anyone dared to question the events of the mission of 20 November. Such tactics are repugnant and will not be tolerated.

They can attack us all they want, the truth defends us. But an elderly veteran, who only told us the truth, not even aware that to do so would make him the target of the vile and vicious attack from Don and Annette Hall, does not deserve such scorn and dishonor from liars as repulsive as they.]

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And on, and on, and on. Bored yet? We are. Bye, Don and Annette.