Seventeen years ago, a terrorist in an Army uniform turned a Texas base into a killing ground.
The families waited. Appeals dragged on through four administrations.
And now Donald Trump signed off on something the US military hasn’t done in more than six decades.
The Pentagon Finally Moves on Nidal Hasan
President Donald Trump approved the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009.
And the Army won’t use a needle. It plans to use rifles.
Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell broke the news in a post on X in early October 2026. According to Parnell, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended death by an Army firing squad, and the President gave his approval.
Parnell’s post put the toll at 13 dead and 32 wounded. He also noted that Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he fired on unarmed troops at one of the largest Army installations in the world.
The Secretary of the Army now gets to set the time and place. Parnell ended his post with a line the victims’ families have waited a long time to read: “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”
When the Daily Caller News Foundation asked the Pentagon’s press office for more, the office simply pointed back to Parnell’s post. No hand-wringing, no carefully lawyered statement. Just the decision.
The Psychiatrist Who Turned on His Own Men
Hasan held the rank of major. He treated soldiers for a living. Then on November 5, 2009, he turned a pistol on the very men and women he had sworn to serve alongside.
But nobody should pretend the warning signs were invisible. ABC News reported back in 2009 that Hasan had been in contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, the Muslim cleric believed to be an al-Qaeda recruiter. A US official told ABC that Hasan wrote to Awlaki about looking forward to sharing non-alcoholic wine with him in the afterlife.
Read that again. An Army officer, with access to soldiers preparing for war, trading messages about the afterlife with a man tied to the terror network that attacked America on September 11, 2001.
Hasan earned roughly $92,000 a year as a major, according to the Daily Caller. He gave somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 a year of it to Islamic charities.
At trial he didn’t deny any of it. Hasan admitted the shooting and claimed he acted to defend what he called the “Islamic Empire” against American forces, according to Straight Arrow News.
A military jury convicted him in 2013 and handed down a death sentence. That should have been the end of it.
Seventeen Years of Delay
It wasn’t. Hasan’s lawyers fought the sentence for years, and his final legal challenge didn’t run out until April 2025.
Hegseth moved fast once it did. In September 2025, he told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “I am 100 percent committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan . . . this savage terrorist deserves the harshest lawful punishment for his 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood. The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays.”
According to an Army legal review from May 2026 cited by IBTimes UK, Hegseth formally asked Trump that same September to sign the death warrant.
But the paperwork sat quietly for months. As recently as June 2026, an Army spokesperson told ABC News the service had no order from the President yet, and described its execution drills as routine contingency planning.
That order exists now.
What the Firing Squad Says About the Last 17 Years
The US military hasn’t executed anyone since 1961, when it hanged Army soldier John Bennett at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, according to We Are The Mighty. Every military death sentence since then has stalled somewhere between the courtroom and the gallows.
Four men sit on military death row: Hasan, Hasan Akbar, Ronald Gray, and Timothy Hennis, according to the Army’s legal review.
And Gray’s case shows exactly why nobody should pop the champagne just yet. President George W Bush approved Gray’s execution in 2008. A federal judge halted it. Gray is still alive. A presidential signature, it turns out, doesn’t guarantee a thing when the courts decide to slow-walk it.
So expect Hasan’s defenders to throw every last motion they can find at the wall. Some of it may even stick for a while. That’s how this process tends to go, and the families of the 13 dead know it better than anyone.
But there’s a bigger story here than one execution order.
Back in 2009, the Pentagon under the first Obama term declined to treat the massacre as terrorism and filed it under “workplace violence” instead, as RedState has pointed out. A jihadist shouting “Allahu Akbar” while gunning down soldiers, and Washington called it an office dispute. Families spent years fighting just to have their loved ones recognized as victims of what it plainly was.
Compare that to the language coming out of the Pentagon now. Parnell’s post calls Hasan a convicted terrorist and a jihadist. No euphemisms. No bureaucratic fog to protect anyone’s feelings.
And the method matters too. The Justice Department announced steps in April 2026 to speed up executions, including expanding approved methods such as the firing squad, according to ABC News. The Army choosing rifles for Hasan fits that broader push to stop letting capital cases rot in limbo.
None of this means Hasan is the last case the President will see. Akbar, a former Army sergeant, stands convicted of premeditated murder for throwing grenades into tents and firing on fellow soldiers at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait in 2003. If Hasan’s sentence goes forward, it’s hard to imagine Akbar’s file staying in a drawer much longer.
But first things first. The Secretary of the Army has a date to set.
The soldiers who died at Fort Hood never got to deploy. Their families got appeals, delays, and a government that wouldn’t call the killer what he was.
Now they’re getting an answer.
“Trump Approves Firing Squad Execution For Jihadist Fort Hood Shooter,” Daily Caller
“Army lays groundwork for death row executions if Trump gives approval,” ABC News
“US Army Prepares for Potential Executions as Defence Secretary Vows ‘Justice Without Delays’,” IBTimes UK
“Hegseth seeks death penalty for Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan,” Straight Arrow News
“War Department Seeks Approval for First Military Execution Since 1961,” RedState
“Army prepares for possibility of carrying out military executions again,” We Are The Mighty