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| John's older brother, Joe, returned home after fifteen months in Iraq, serving as the Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) Platoon Leader of his outfit's gun-truck platoon. SGT Hall's unit (the U.S. Army's 720th Transportation Unit) was responsible for patrol and protection of the most fre-quently-targeted convoys across the deadliest roads of the now-infamous Sunni Triangle. SGT Hall has been decorated with multi-ple combat-related awards, to include: the Army Com-mendation Medal, as well as (most notably) the Bronze Star (With Valor). During a combat engage-ment with enemy insurgent forces, SGT Hall sustained serious injury to his spine (five herniated vertebrae), but somehow managed to continue fighting for the safety and protection of his convoy and troops. Due to this life-altering wound, his Purple Heart Medal is cur-rently pending. And while his unit sustained multiple casualties requiring medical transport out-of-theatre, not one of his soldiers went home K-I-A (in a body bag). As a leader of troops, Joe considers this his greatest wartime accom-plishment. |
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| Copyright 2007 John D. Hall All Rights Reserved |
| My Brother is . . . That luckiest of boys that manages, in growing up, to become exactly the man his young dreams always wanted to be. ----John |
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| And--more importanly--Joe won the Medal of Love, after his return to the States, marrying the girl he first met as a wartime pen-pal. Amanda Dean knew Joe's parents from her church. They encouraged her to write Joe overseas. By the time he came home for two weeks of R&R, the two had fallen madly (and I do mean madly) in love with each other. They married shortly after his final return home. Joe claims he never would have made it through his time in Iraq without "his angel" to return home to. The picture below is from Joe and Amanda's wedding (left-to-right: Amanda, Joe, Kandice and I). Speaking of Joe's return home, I'll never forget quietly whis-pering to Joe's Best Man (Capt. Hedlund) at the wedding: "Thanks for getting my Brother out of that place." The Soldier instantly turned to me and whispered back: "Hell . . . It was your Brother that got me out of there, John. He saved my life." As Americans, we can all look at our safe, sleeping children and quite literally realize . . . Joe kept the terrorists over there, where he fought them--where he suffered--was wounded . . . And Joe came home . . . Nothing less than . . . a Hero. |
| Currently, Joe D. Hall, Jr. has been medically discharged from military service, due to the wounds he sustained in Iraq. But he remains a soldier, not merely a veteran--Joe is a field commander in the Lord's Army. His efforts as both veteran and Christian have led him to create the Christian Veterans of Arkansas (CVA). It is our Nation's first non-profit, support organization of its kind. |
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