Hasan – who killed 13 and wounded 32 others during a November 2009 shooting at Fort Hood – will be executed by firing squad on December 3 at 1 p.m. at the very military base he once terrorized.
Page A2From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 7 October 2026
Army's first firing squad since World War Two will execute the gunman at the base he attacked.
As it ran on the front
Today we are making an execution by firing squad, a method the American army has not used since the Second World War, so I shall go slowly. You will need one man, one base, a date now set, and a sentence that has waited since 2013 to be carried out.
Clive Waiting is a craft. I have been drafting a response to the landlord's silence for what feels like an age, and this house has yet to call that history.
Gary History. The landlord's silence isn't history, Clive, it's Tuesday. At least the Army sets a date; our boiler just sets a mood.
The man is Nidal Malik Hasan, once an Army major and a psychiatrist. On 5 November 2009 he killed 13 unarmed soldiers and wounded 32 more at Fort Hood, the deadliest attack of its kind ever carried out on an American military base. He was sentenced to death on 28 August 2013. You will be looking for the appeal that undoes this. One was granted automatically, and the Army general who reviewed the case could still have reduced it to life without parole; the record does not say what became of either, only that the President's own approval is required before any execution.
Rob Review. If the Army can review a sentence down to life, why can't this house review the rota without it ending in silence.
Keith Silence sells. That's a market still open; give me till Thursday and I'll have the rights moving before this house settles a rota.
Firing squads did not begin again with Hasan; they returned to him. On 7 March 2025, Brad Sigmon was executed by firing squad at Broad River Correctional Institution in South Carolina, the first prisoner executed that way since June 2010. The Army has now set its own date: the third of December, at one in the afternoon, at Fort Hood itself, the very base Hasan once attacked. Turn the Army over and look at it underneath: it once commissioned him, and will walk him back through its own gate to carry this out.
The BBC, which is what they have here, has it as a first for the American military since the Second World War. The New York Post has it as sending him back to the base he attacked.
Clive Rights. You can keep the rights, Keith; I'll keep being first, same as I was to the bathroom this morning, credit still owed.
Gary First. Being first to the bathroom isn't a record anyone's keeping, unlike the Army's; the boiler still only answers to a thump.
It serves no one who was in the building when this happened; nothing changes for them on the date now set. What is left standing is paperwork — a conviction, a review that could still have gone another way, and whichever signature the file still needs.
Gary Whichever signature it's waiting on. This house hasn't had one since the landlord left for Spain, lease or boiler, and it's the only wait round here that isn't final.
“They've got a man they already sentenced thirteen years ago, and they're marching him back to the exact base to do it with a method nobody in the Army has touched since 1945. That's not justice, that's a demonstration: the state proving to itself that a firing squad can be stood up and fired on command, same drill South Carolina already ran. Next time they need a fast, visible kill with a federal seal on it, this is the receipt they'll point to.”
“Look, this is justice finally catching up — thirteen years is actually a sign the system is careful, not slow, and doing it at Fort Hood gives the base closure, full circle, very fitting. The firing squad piece, South Carolina already proved it's clean and efficient, nothing to see there — wait, did I just compare an Army execution to a state prison upgrade? That's not — I didn't mean it like that.”
Earlier in this story
- New York Post prices transit tax at $17 billion, then $1 billion, then $17 billion, same day By Ruth · the sunrise edition, 7 October 2026
The receipts
Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 unarmed soldiers and injured another 32 in the deadliest ever non-combat attack on an American military base.
· Former U.S. Army Major and psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan is sentenced to death for the November 5, 2009, Fort Hood massacre that killed 13 and wounded 32 others. He will be granted an automatic appea from the morgue, 28 Aug 2013
· 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
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.