The U.S. military has executed at least 135 of its own — a rogues’ gallery of notorious mutineers, deserters, rapists and killers — over the past 250 years. In a few weeks, former Army psychiatrist and mass shooter Nidal Malik Hasan’s name is likely to be added to that list.
Hasan is scheduled to face an Army firing squad Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, the massive Texas base north of Austin, where he fatally shot 13 people in 2009. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Real America’s Voice that the public would be able to watch it.
Capital punishment, especially in the modern era, is exceedingly rare in the U.S. military. Hasan’s execution would be the first since Army Pvt. and convicted child rapist John A. Bennett was hanged in 1961. Still, the total number is almost surely higher than the 135 for which records exist.
People were interested in these podcasts
Military justice from the Revolutionary War through the Civil War was highly decentralized. Commanders conducted summary courts-martial and battlefield executions before the advent of any central archive system.
George Washington approved the execution of American soldiers during the Revolutionary War, including Thomas Hickey, a private in his bodyguard detachment who was convicted of mutiny and sedition for his role in a British conspiracy to assassinate American military leaders.
Gen. Winfield Scott ordered the death by hanging of about 50 members of the mostly Irish immigrant St. Patrick’s Battalion who were convicted of deserting their posts in combat and joining the other side during the Mexican-American War.
Hasan’s execution, approved by President Trump this month, will be the first conducted by a military firing squad since Jan. 31, 1945, when Army Pvt. Eddie Slovik was shot for desertion during World War II near Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in France.
“I didn’t realize that was something that we still did in the military. The fact that they’re doing that, I think, speaks volumes,” said former Army Capt. Connor Crehan, who was at Fort Hood when Hasan opened fire on Nov. 5, 2009, at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center.
The facility coordinated administrative clearances for troops before their deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan or upon their return from overseas.
Mr. Crehan was familiar with the processing center. It was just down the road from his artillery battalion in the 1st Cavalry Division. He had returned from a tour in Iraq that June.
“I knew people in that building that day,” he said. “We were locked down in our office for hours, as we didn’t know he was acting alone.”
A service member can be sentenced to death under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for 15 specific offenses. Military law strictly distinguishes between offenses that are capital at any time and those punishable only in times of war.
Wartime-specific cases include offenses such as desertion, espionage and refusal to obey a lawful order in times of war. Charges that can result in capital punishment during peacetime include conspiracy, sedition and premeditated murder.
Hasan is one of four military service members on death row. Each was charged with murder.
Mr. Crehan said he recalled the uncertainty and his anger at the time.
“We had just returned from a combat zone, and here we were on an American base in fear of an active shooter,” he said. “We were supposed to be safe, [but] we weren’t. Finally getting closure all these years later is healing.”
Acting Army Secretary Adam R. Telle announced the date and location of Hasan’s execution Tuesday after Mr. Hegseth’s recommendation and Mr. Trump’s formal approval of the death sentence.
Mr. Hegseth told the online conservative newspaper Human Events that the decision to recommend a firing squad as the means of execution was a “no-brainer,” and the choice of Fort Hood as the location for it was not a coincidence.
“Of course we’re going to do it at Fort Hood and do it on a Thursday. We’re going to do it at 10 a.m. — which is when he did it — and it’s going to be soldiers with rifles,” Mr. Hegseth said. “It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers — as it should be.”
The Defense Department has not said how it plans to conduct the firing squad execution, but said it would be livestreamed.
Mr. Hegseth was asked whether Hasan had made any requests or reached out to the White House since Mr. Trump approved the execution order.
“Don’t care. We’ll see him on Dec. 3,” he said.
Mr. Crehan wondered whether the recent botched execution by lethal injection of death row inmate Christa Pike in Tennessee might have played a part in the Trump administration’s authorization of a firing squad for the Hasan execution.
“The chances that an execution is botched with a firing squad versus a lethal injection are drastically different,” Mr. Crehan told The Washington Times. “I would imagine that they’re trying to send a message that an individual who opens fire on our own service members while wearing the uniform of our military is not going to be tolerated in any way, shape or form.”
Although the date for his execution has been set, Hasan is entitled under the Constitution to pursue an appellate review of his death sentence in civilian federal courts. That could indefinitely delay the execution, said the Death Penalty Information Center.
“President Trump has long sought an increase in the use of the death penalty and authorized a record-breaking 13 federal executions in the waning days of his first term,” the center said.
Hasan was a major in the Army’s medical corps and self-identified as an Islamic jihadi. He carried out the attack on the unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood under that ideology.
He was stripped of his rank and dishonorably discharged after his August 2013 court-martial.
Mr. Crehan was working at the battalion headquarters on Nov. 5 when his boss, the operations officer, suddenly rushed in and told the staff to “stand fast.”
“It was kind of startling because we had no idea what was going on. We were just going about our day,” he recalled.
Information was scarce even for those near the scene because social media platforms such as Twitter were still in their infancy, Mr. Crehan said.
“I can remember the rest of the day just sitting here, trying to refresh websites and getting information piecemeal from friends who were also stationed at Fort Hood,” he said. “It was really like trying to squeeze water out of a stone.”
Mr. Crehan was angry in the days after the mass shooting because Hasan had stripped away the feeling of safety and security for combat soldiers who had returned home.
“I had just survived a year, and so many other people had survived deployments, and then to come back on American soil, on an American military base, and have that fear reinstated into our bodies,” he said. “It was anger-inducing, and it was anxiety-inducing because of the uncertainty.”
Mr. Crehan remained at Fort Hood until 2011.
“For the remainder of my time at Fort Hood, it was always sort of in the back of my mind,” he said. “I try not to hold grudges in my life, but there is resentment because ‘peace of mind’ was taken away on that day.”
Modern executions by firing squad are rare for both the military and the civilian U.S. justice system, where only five firing squad executions have been carried out since 1977.
The U.S. and the Allies executed hundreds of Nazi war criminals through tribunals and occupation courts after World War II. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg indicted 24 top Nazi leaders. Of that number, 12 were sentenced to death, and 10 were hanged in October 1946.
Contact the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.