The execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting, is set for December, according to the U.S. Army. The Tuesday memo, obtained by The Hill’s sister network NewsNation, lists Dec.
Page A205From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 7 October 2026
Army pencils in first firing squad since World War Two for Dec. 3, 1 p.m. sharp.
As it ran on the front
Today we come back to the oven for a dish we put in here on the 7th of this month: the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, once an Army major and a psychiatrist, now the man a court-martial sentenced to death for killing 13 people at Fort Hood on 5 November 2009. The Army has now set the date. You will need the sentence, handed down on 28 August 2013; the method, which the BBC calls a first for the American military since the Second World War; and a memo that arrived this week carrying the day, the hour and the place already in it.
On 28 August 2013 the sentence was the whole of the news: a court-martial sent Hasan to death row, and death row is where he has sat since.…
Clive Sat and waited. I've a response to the landlord drafted since spring, and this house still won't call that patience.
Gary It's not patience, Clive, it's a drawer with paper in it. The Army set a date; the meter's run since March without so much as a reading sent.
The method is the part the house will not have met before: the Army has not used a firing squad since the Second World War, which is the BBC's own phrase for it. The last American execution that way was Brad Sigmon's, at Broad River Correctional, in March 2025 — the first by firing squad in fifteen years, Sky News had it.
Rob A first again. Why is everything in this house somebody's first except whose turn it is on the rota?
Keith The rota's no first, Rob, it's a rerun, and reruns don't sell themselves.
Now the date itself. The Hill, working from a Tuesday memo its sister network NewsNation obtained, places it at Dec. 3, 1 p.m. CDT, at the base itself: Fort Hood, the same ground where the thirteen were killed. The memo gives only that — a day, an hour, a place — and the Army is simple enough to pick up and look at underneath: it set the date, and it is the same base that will carry it out.
You will be looking for a reprieve somewhere in that memo. There is not one in it; there is a day, an hour and a place, and nothing else that The Hill found there.
Here the two papers part without raising a voice. The BBC has it as "a first for US military since World War Two" — the printed phrase, and the headline it ran under. The Hill, working the same memo, gives only the date and the address.
This serves the thirteen families who have waited since 2009; it is paid for, as Army executions are, by the public that has had Hasan on its books the whole time.
Gary On the books the whole time. We've had the immersion heater on the books since February, and the Army still beats us to a date.
“They waited thirteen years to bring back a method the military hasn't used since World War Two, and they're doing it on the same base he shot up. That's not closure, that's a message, and it's aimed at the soldiers still stationed there.”
“This is just procedure — the Army picked a date, nothing more, nothing political about Fort Hood being the location. Although, scheduling it at the exact base does send something of a signal, doesn't it. No, forget I said that, it's thirteen years overdue and that's the whole story.”
Earlier in this story
- Army's first firing squad since World War Two will execute the gunman at the base he attacked. By The Lodgers · the breakfast edition, 7 October 2026
- 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.
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.