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Coral Springs, Florida — Nothing summons patriotism and strength quite like shooting a prisoner that the Army should never have recruited, much less promoted to Major—17 years after the police shot him in the back, leaving him unable to stand.
On November 5, 2009, U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan used his service pistol to shoot and kill 13 soldiers and wounded more than 30 at a Fort Hood, Texas, processing center for troops preparing to deploy. Civilian police ended the attack by shooting him. Within weeks, his lawyer reported that Hasan was permanently paralyzed, with no sensation from about the nipple line down, incontinence, and a need for constant care. He has been unable to stand ever since. He was convicted of mass murder thereafter.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has set the execution of Hasan by firing squad for 1 p.m. on December 3 at Fort Hood—the hour and place of the attack. He told Jack Posobiec on Real America’s Voice that it was a “no-brainer.” Fort Hood. A Thursday. One o’clock, “which is when he did it.” Soldiers with rifles and the public watching, “because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences.” Video of the interview.
Asked whether Hasan had made a final request, Hegseth said he did not care. He should. Before trial, Hasan told a sanity board that even if he were executed by lethal injection, he would still be a martyr. Hegseth is planning to grant Hasan’s dying wish with considerably more spectacle. Upping the ante, the Pentagon announced that the execution will be livestreamed. It would be the first military execution since 1961 and the first by firing squad since 1945.
The staging presents an awkward reality: a firing squad will have to shoot a paralyzed man strapped upright because he cannot stand. No amount of pageantry can obscure the more fundamental failure: Hasan should never have been in uniform in the first place.
Hasan was a Medical Corps psychiatrist. Born September 8, 1970, in Arlington, Virginia, he enlisted after high school, earned a biochemistry degree from Virginia Tech in 1997, and graduated from medical school at the Uniformed Services University in 2003. He took six years to complete a four-year program and was on academic probation for much of that time.
Hasan’s psychiatry residency at Walter Reed ran from 2003 to 2009. A 2007 memo from the residency director reported poor attendance, low scores, too few patients seen, an incident in which he let a homicidal patient leave the emergency room, and discussions of religion with patients. The memo described “a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism.”
Yet supervisors still rated him “outstanding” and “must promote.” Those reports determine promotions. He made captain in 2003 and major on May 17, 2009, on the normal time-in-grade schedule. A shortage of Medical Corps majors allowed that board to promote captains who otherwise would not have been considered. He had no overseas deployment. Hasan’s promotion was approved by an Army board under President Dubya Bush in 2008 and took effect under President Obama in 2009.
Hasan used a wheelchair throughout his 2013 court-martial, admitted he was the shooter, called no witnesses, and was sentenced to death. He has been in custody for seventeen years. He is not a flight risk. A firing squad is built for a man who can stand. This one cannot. The Army will have to transport him in a wheelchair, manage his medical needs, and then livestream his execution.
The families already had a verdict in 2013. What Hegseth added was the hour, the base, the rifles, and a camera—all aimed at a man who must be wheeled in. None of that answers how a psychiatrist with that record was sent to Fort Hood in the first place.
