Judgement day has finally come for the Fort Hood terrorist.
President Donald Trump has approved death by U.S. Army firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who walked into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009, shouted "Allahu Akbar," and opened fire on unarmed soldiers being processed for deployment. Twelve soldiers and one civilian were killed. Thirty-two others were wounded.
The approval came Monday on the recommendation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — now titled Secretary of War. "Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced. "The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come." Hegseth's own word for it: "Justice."
Hasan's path to this moment was long. Shot by police and left in a wheelchair, he admitted at his 2013 court-martial that he was the shooter, saying he did it to protect the Taliban. A military jury convicted him of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder and sentenced him to death. But a military death sentence cannot be carried out until a president approves it — and no president did, until now. The appeals ran out; the Supreme Court turned him away in early 2025. Hegseth had been pushing for this for over a year, telling the Washington Examiner last September he was "100% committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out."
Army rules put the execution window at 60 to 150 days once the Secretary of the Army sets the time and place — though a civilian habeas corpus fight could still delay it.
The history here is staggering. The last U.S. Army firing squad was in January 1945, when Pvt. Eddie Slovik was executed in France for desertion. The last military execution of any kind was a hanging in 1961. If this one is carried out, it will be the first in 65 years.
This is what it looks like when accountability is put back in its place. Thirteen families have waited seventeen years. A real penalty, signed by the president, is the deterrent — bad behavior stops looking free when the people in charge are willing to finish the sentence.