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On Dec. 3, 2026, the U.S. government intends to take Nidal Hasan to a firing range at Fort Hood and publicly execute him.
Few condemned men could make a more difficult case for mercy.
Seventeen years ago, Hasan, an Army psychiatrist at the time, walked into a soldier readiness center at the Texas Army post and opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. Now, after years of appeals, the Army is preparing to execute him by firing squad.
And Americans will be able to watch on live stream.
That last detail has transformed what might otherwise have been the long-delayed conclusion of one of the darkest chapters in the Army’s history into a more uncomfortable question: How should a nation reckon with the gravity of taking a life, even when that life belongs to a mass murderer?
For Alonzo Lunsford, a former Army staff sergeant who survived being shot seven times by Hasan, the answer is complicated.
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Fort Hood victim Alonzo Lunsfords says he plans to attend Nidal Hasan’s execution.
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army doctor identified by authorities as the mass shooter at the U.S. Army post in Fort Hood, Texas, is seen in this undated handout photo from a pdf file of the U.S. Government Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences downloaded on November 6, 2009. U.S. intelligence agencies learned the Army psychiatrist contacted an Islamist sympathetic to al Qaeda and relayed that information to authorities before he allegedly went on a shooting spree that killed 13 people in Texas last week, U.S. officials said on Monday. (REUTERS/Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences/Handout)
Lunsford wants Hasan executed. He intends to witness it himself in December. He told Fox News Digital he would even prefer that one of Hasan’s surviving victims or the relatives of those he killed be allowed to pull the trigger.
Despite that, Lunsford says he has forgiven Hasan.
“The weird thing about it, I’ve forgiven him because my faith does not allow me to heal and continue unless I forgive that man,” Lunsford said.
But forgiveness, for Lunsford, does not mean sparing Hasan from punishment. What troubles him is the prospect of turning that punishment into entertainment.
“It’s not a spectacle,” he said. “There’s nothing glorified in the smell of human flesh, blood and gunpowder. It’s a smell you will never forget. It’s a taste that you will never forget.”
“That’s not something you sit around and say, hey, let’s get some popcorn and look at this execution,” he continued. “We as a people, we’re better than that. This ain’t no country where we do public beheadings and stonings and think it’s fine.”
Soldiers salute during a remembrance ceremony marking the first anniversary of the Fort Hood shooting on Nov. 5, 2010, in Killeen, Texas. The 2009 attack killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others. (Ben Sklar/Getty Images)
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Lunsford was working at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Nov. 5, 2009, when Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opened fire. He recalled watching Hasan kill a colleague before turning the weapon on him. Lunsford was shot above his left eye, fell to the floor and played dead before eventually escaping outside, where Hasan shot him again.
“I’ve accepted the fact I’m gonna live with the pain for the rest of my life,” Lunsford said.
He has since found purpose in coaching basketball, mentoring young people and helping others struggling with their mental health.
Lunsford said he doesn’t want children watching the livestream, though he believes adults can decide for themselves whether to tune in.
“This is not somewhere you all start throwing some meat on the grill, get outside and say, hey, we’re gonna watch them unalive this guy by firing squad,” he said. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do that because when you do that, you’re dishonoring those that made the supreme sacrifice, those who are no longer here. Those are heroes.”
War Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended making the execution public, saying Americans should understand the consequences of Hasan’s crimes.
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Hegseth said in an interview this week. “Because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Vice President JD Vance cast doubt Friday on whether the Pentagon would follow through with its plans to livestream Hasan’s execution, saying he had no intention of watching it himself.
“I see these announcements. I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” he told reporters Friday.
The decision for the first U.S. Army death by firing squad in 86 years to be live streamed has drawn opposition even from Republicans who support putting Hasan to death.
U.S. President Barack Obama (R) and first lady Michelle Obama pay their respects to the people killed as they attend a memorial service for the thirteen victims of the shooting rampage allegedly by U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan on November 10, 2009 in Fort Hood, Texas. Hasan, an army psychiatrist, is accused of killing 13 people and wounded 30 during a shooting at the military base. (Getty Images)
“I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., wrote on X.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., likewise said Hasan “should face the death penalty,” but called publicly streaming it “beyond disgusting.”
“Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do,” Tillis wrote. “It should not be happening in America.”
The nation’s Catholic bishops have gone further, opposing both Hasan’s execution and the decision to make it public. “In no way can Hassan’s actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Friday.
“The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people.”
The decision has also raised a more immediate national security concern.
Hasan, who was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot during the 2009 attack, has previously spoken about becoming a martyr. Matthew Levitt, a former Treasury counterterrorism official and director of the Washington Institute’s Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, warned that making footage of his death widely available could give terrorist groups material to exploit.
“It seems like a poor decision to provide terrorist groups with a video clip they can effectively splice into radicalization propaganda,” Levitt told Fox News Digital.
“There’s no tangible benefit to live streaming an execution, and it may, in fact, exacerbate the terrorist threat.”
For Lunsford, however, the execution remains deeply personal.
During Hasan’s 2013 court-martial, the two locked eyes. Lunsford wants Hasan to see him again before he dies.
“I want to look at him in his eyes. I want him to see me — man to man,” Lunsford said. “My message to him: Dude, you failed.”
“I go where I wanna go, when I wanna go, how I wanna go. With no fear,” he said. “I can go outside and just smell and listen to nature. You don’t have that luxury.”
And despite everything Hasan took from him, Lunsford said he hopes the condemned man uses his final moments to repent.
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“I want to give him the opportunity to, the last words out of his mouth is to apologize and repent,” Lunsford said. “And be held accountable for his sins and for his crime. And I will be OK with that.”
