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. GOP GOV DEWINE URGES OHIO TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY, SAYS IT IS NO LONGER A DETERRENT 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.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
