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Born in a Foxhole:
How a Terrifying Night on the Kosovo Border Sparked a Lifelong Mission to Serve Veterans
(What one insane night in Albania taught me about brotherhood)
By: D. Hall November 23, 2025 17 Comments
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It was the early spring of 1998, and it felt like the entire world was holding its breath.
We found ourselves camped along the Albania/Kosovo border - where a thin line of mud and undeniable tension separated us from the chaos unfolding a few short miles away.
You see, in his bid for supreme rule, Slobodan MiloĆĄeviÄ was tightening the grip of his iron fist, doing everything he could to accomplish his goal of dominating the Serbs.
So much so that the U.S. Army was sent in to hold the line, steady the region, and protect the innocent.
I was barely ten months out of high school, too young to even fully understand what was really going on, but old enough to put on a uniform and stand at attention with a 15 pound rifle/grenade launcher combo slung over my right shoulder - in the middle of a country I had only heard about just a few weeks prior.
But that night was different. That night, the world felt still. Too stillâŠ
Cold. Dark. And eerily quiet, the kind of night where even your breath seems afraid to make a sound...
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...I donât know if my senses were super-heightened that night but I vividly remember that the cold air stung my face. And the sky looked like a blank, pitch-black canvas of nothingness. No stars, no moon, no sign that we were even still on the blue planet.
And the smellâoh god, that smell! It was enough to make even the toughest grunt gag.
Our location was surrounded by farmlands and livestock, so the rancid, pungent stench of fresh dung and old manure hung heavy over everything, everywhere. You could almost taste it every time you took a breath.
My new best friend Rick, whom I met in basic training, was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with me inside a fresh foxhole we had recently dug into the cold earth.
That night, we had been ordered to stand guard over the camp. I held my M16/M203 grenade launcher combo, and Rick clutched his M16. Both of us were more awake than if we drank coffee made with red bull instead of water.
Thatâs when it happened...
...A rustle. A scratch. Then an eruptionâ pure panic!
A huge rat, easily the size of my boot, leapt into our foxhole from only-the-Lord-knows-where. It was as startled as we were, darting left and right, bouncing off of our legs, squealing, scrambling, and looking for an exit.
Rickâs face looked like heâd seen a ghost. I was no better. I was so scared I almost threw my weapon at it. For a few ridiculous moments, a trench full of trained U.S. soldiers were being terrorized by an unarmed rodent with an apparent death wish.
When it finally scurried away, we just stared at each other, shaking from an unbalanced mixture of cold, fear and laughter.
But the laughter didnât last long...
Little did we know, the rat wouldnât be the highlight of our âexcitementâ that night.
Around 0300 (3 a.m.) was when the night cracked wide open!..
Gunfire ripped through the darkness like lightning. They were machine-gun bursts⊠Sharp. Violent. Loud.
We ducked down as bullets buzzed overhead like a swarm of angry insects. Those rounds werenât warning shots. They were definitely aimed at us. At our camp. At our brothers.
The Serbs, or whoever they were, were close and getting even closer as we could hear the volume intensifying with every progressing burst.
And even though that was the fact, we couldnât even fire back to save our own lives.
Why?
Because the Geneva Convention had our hands tied. So we could do nothing. Not a single round. Not a single grenade. Nada.
We had no other choice but to stay down and stay put, like the sitting ducks we were.
Whoever was shooting at us had stopped their advancement as the machine bursts stayed at bay.
But even though they stopped moving towards us, the firing didnât. Relentless. Echoing across the borderlands.
I hoped every burst would be the last. But it wasnât. It continued on-and-on for more than an hour. It felt as if they were spawning unlimited ammo out of thin air.
The earth shook. My heart pounded. And Rickâmy tough, loud-mouthed, unbreakable best friendâstarted crying like a newborn baby. Not out of weakness, but out of raw, undiluted fear.
I wanted to cry too. I thought my life would end right there in that cold, smelly, dark hole in the ground.
My short life flashed before my eyes as I imagined my parents being told that their sonâbarely an adultâhad died in a random trench thousands of miles from home. And the only thing they would have to remember him by was a folded flag and a dog tag.
But I snapped out of it as something inside me hardened!..
I remember grabbing Rickâs shoulders and shaking him to get it together. I remember telling him and the othersâthat we were getting out of there. Period!
I told them all we needed to do was stay grounded, breathe, and pray. I went on to say that if we were captured, or killed, it would all be for our country, for each other, and for the people we loved.
In that moment, something happened that still gives me chills to this day.
The fear didnât disappear, but it settled. We settled. We became one pulse, one breath, one unit. Brothers. Not by blood, but by bond.
That night, we chose to stand with and for each other in one of the darkest moments any human can face.
And thatâs what being a veteran really means.
Not the medals. Not the accolades.
Itâs the brotherhood you forge in the coldest, darkest, smelliest foxholes of the worldâunder fire, under pressure, under Godâand the unspoken promise that you will never let your brothers face the night alone.
That was the night I decided that whenever I became a civilian again, I would devote whatever I do to serving my bond-brothers & sisters, my United States veterans!
And that was the driving force behind Hall Solutions. My goal is to assist 10,000 vets with becoming homeowners.
And we do this by getting our vets better interest rates, better terms, and faster approvals than they can get by going through the bank(s) they already bank with. Guaranteed!
In fact, my team and I have helped vets go from finding a house, to closing the house in as little as 6 days!
Man, I love what I do! Almost as much as I love who I do it for, my fellow brothers and sisters of the service! đ«Ą
If you or any vet you know is looking to buy a forever home, or maybe invest into a property for rentals/AirBNB; or just looking to build generationally by expanding their portfolio, Hall Solutions is always here to serve you, the same way you and I served our wonderful country!
Looking forward to helping you make your dreams come true too,
- Dominic E. Hall & Family
