The execution of Nidal Malik Hasan will be the first military execution since 1961 and the first by firing squad since the end of World War Two.
Page A5From§Eachthe midnight edition — 6 October 2026
FIRST SINCE WWII
Pentagon revives firing squad as a historic first, the same week lethal injection needed forty minutes to fail.
As it ran on the front
I made a list this morning. Six lines, in the order they happened, and then I stopped, because once you read a list like this out loud there isn't much left to add to it.
2009: a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, kills thirteen people. 2013: a military jury sentences the man who did it, Nidal Hasan, to death. March 7th, 2025: South Carolina executes a man by firing squad, the first time any state has used that method since 2010. October 1st, this year: Tennessee's governor calls their own state's execution "deeply disturbing" and suspends every execution on the books, because the lethal injection meant to kill a woman named Christa Pike left her alive for forty minutes instead. October 2nd: her lawyer says she's in critical condition, and the governor orders an inquiry. Today, October 6th, seventeen years after Fort Hood: a Pentagon spokesperson posts on social media that the Secretary of War recommended, and the President approved, executing Hasan by Army firing squad — the first U.S. military execution since 1961, and the first by firing squad since the end of the Second World War.…
…(cont) That's the list. I'm not reading it twice.
I went out to the garage after that, because I wanted to check something, and the garage is where I check things. I've got two fire extinguishers mounted on the wall out there.
One's a cheap red can from the hardware store, fourteen years old. I test-fired it into the yard the day I brought it home, just to see if it worked. It worked. I haven't had reason to touch it since, so what I can actually tell you is that it worked once, fourteen years ago, and nothing past that.
The other one's the good one — steel tank, pressure gauge, a tag by the door you're supposed to punch every year when the company comes through to check it. The dog was nosing around the cans while I looked at that tag today. The last punch on it is dated 2019. That's not just "a while." By my count, that's seven years since anybody signed off on whether the good one still does what it's built to do.
Here's what I keep turning over, and I don't have a clean answer for it, which is why I'm asking instead of telling you. The Army is going back to a method it hasn't used on a soldier since before most of us were born. The state one river over just finished watching its newer method fail to do its job on schedule, on a person who was supposed to be unconscious within a couple of minutes. Which one of those two got announced this week as a historic first, and which one got a governor's suspension and an outside inquiry?
And if the tag on the good extinguisher hasn't been punched since 2019, whose job was it to punch it — and whose job is it to notice that nobody did?
Oh — before you go. The wire out of France today says the date and the location for Hasan's execution haven't been set; the Army hasn't picked a day yet. Tennessee's governor, the one who had to call their own state's execution "deeply disturbing" this month, already has a date on their calendar — their inquiry runs at least through the end of the year. So I'll leave you with this: one of these two executions already has a deadline attached to it. Which one do you figure that is — the one the Army hasn't scheduled, or the one Tennessee's already promised an answer on by New Year's?
“They're treating a firing squad as a milestone and a lethal injection gone wrong as background noise, but look at the order of operations: the method they trust broke down first, so they reached backward for the one that doesn't need a pharmacist. Thirteen people died at Fort Hood in 2009, and it took seventeen years to decide how to kill the man who did it — Tennessee needed forty minutes to not kill somebody it meant to, on the first try. Either way, the state wants you watching the method, not the fact that it can botch the new one and dust off the old one in the same week.”
“Look, seventeen years is exactly the point — a stone-cold conviction from a military jury finally gets consequences, that's the system working. That's got nothing to do with Tennessee, that's a totally separate state, separate method, separate — okay, fine, they're both executions, I see where this is going, but at least one of them has an announcement attached to it, so somebody over there is organized. Did I just say "at least our firing squad has a timeline" out loud? That doesn't sound like me.”
Earlier in this story
- Pentagon approves firing squad days after the drug meant to kill Christa Pike left her alive forty minutes. By Lou · the late evening edition, 5 October 2026
- Gary Wayne Sutton's execution is on hold because Tennessee's execution team keeps failing, not because his case changed. By Ruth · the early evening edition, 5 October 2026
- CEOs sign accord naming AI 'Super Intelligence,' then refuse to call it that when asked By Mitch · the sunrise edition, 4 October 2026
- Tennessee hired a commissioner with four botched executions, got a fifth, ordered its first review. By Ruth · the sunrise edition, 4 October 2026
- CEOs sign 'morally binding' AI pact that leaves the binding part unnamed By Mitch · the milkman edition, 4 October 2026
- Tennessee hired a chief after four botched executions, got a fifth, named a sixth official to explain it. By Ruth · the wee small hours edition, 4 October 2026
The receipts
Nidal Hasan’s execution by firing squad would mark the first time the U.S. military has put someone to death using the method since World War II.
President Donald Trump authorized the execution of Nidal Hasan, the soldier convicted in the deadly 2009 Fort Hood shooting, by an Army firing squad following War Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s request, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Monday. “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved …
President Trump cleared the way for Nidal Malik Hasan to face an Army firing squad nearly 17 years after the Fort Hood massacre that killed 13 people.
President Donald Trump approved a firing-squad execution on Monday for Nidal Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. Hasan's execution will be the first carried out by the US military since 1961, with the date and location yet to be set by the Army.
Nidal Hasan sentenced to death by military jury in 2013 for carrying out deadly shooting attack at army base in Texas Donald Trump has approved the execution by US army firing squad of Nidal Hasan, who was sentenced to death for killing 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a social media…
President Trump has approved the use of a firing squad to execute convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan, the Pentagon announced Monday.
The Trump administration has approved a plan to execute former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan — who killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood — by firing squad, the Pentagon said.
Nidal Malik Hasan, a convicted terrorist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Ft. Hood in 2009, has been sentenced to death by firing squad, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced Monday on the social platform X. Parnell said that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “recommended”
Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 for carrying out the Al-Qaeda inspired mass shooting of 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth recommended the execution and it was approved by President Donald Trump.
· Convicted murderer Brad Sigmon is executed by firing squad at Broad River Correctional Institution in South Carolina, United States. He is the first inmate to be executed via firing squad since June 2 from the morgue, 7 Mar 2025
· Twenty-one men are executed by a firing squad in Galkayo, in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland, Somalia, after they were convicted of being members of the jihadist group al-Shabaab. It is the larg from the morgue, 27 Jun 2021
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