Survivor says Fort Hood shooter should be executed '13 times' — but not live

Julia Wilson survived the 2009 Fort Hood massacre and wants Nidal Hasan to be executed, but she is hesitant to broadcast his execution live.

WATCH: Fort Hood survivor wishes shooter dead '13 more times', recounts mass shooting

Julia Wilson, a survivor of the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting and former civilian employee of the Department of Defense, discusses why she is hesitant to publicly air the execution of shooter Nidal Hasan and shares her own account of the tragedy.

A survivor of the 2009 Fort Hood massacre says he wishes the mass shooter would be killed once for every life he took that day — but even he questions the military's decision to live-stream his death.

Nidal Hasan, 56, is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3, 2026, and Secretary of War Pete Hegst announced earlier this month that the firing squad would be available for public viewing.

Wilson wants the mass shooter executed, and as a victim, he wants to attend his execution and look into his eyes.

Hassan, an Army psychiatrist at the time, walked into a Soldier Training Center on a Texas Army post on Nov. 5, 2009, and opened fire, killing 13 and wounding 32 others. After the verdict of the military court, Hassan was sentenced to death on August 28, 2013.

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On October 2, President Donald Trump approved the death sentence, and a few days later Hexett announced that the sentence would be carried out by a public firing squad.

"You did what you did," Wilson continued of Hasan's attack. Too bad we can't kill you 13 times.

But Wilson has reservations about the decision to publicly broadcast Hasan's execution.

"I'm kind of shocked that they're going as far as televising it," Wilson said. "I don't really know how to feel about it."

He worries that broadcasting his death risks exposing children to the violence he has spent nearly 17 years trying to forget.

"Unfortunately, some kids may end up seeing that, that they don't need to see," Wilson said. "Seeing my soldiers killed that day was the first time I'd ever seen anything like that. And I can never get it out of my head."

"I don't know why anyone would actually want to see something like that."

Wilson's concerns echo objections raised by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Sen. Tom Tillis, R-N.C., wrote in a post for X on Thursday: "Hassan should face the death penalty, but to publicize his execution and broadcast it? Beyond disgusting." Public executions are what cruel dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. This should not happen in America.

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Sen. Tom Tillis, R-N.C., votes on Thursday, April 30, 2026, in the U.S. Congress. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)

On Saturday, Trump said he would decide whether to broadcast Hasan's execution live, acknowledging that he knows "what the military wants to do" after the execution.

"As for the execution, to be honest, I have mixed feelings about it," Wilson said. "Yes, I'm glad it's moving forward. No, I… never want to see another human die."

But in the same fold, an eye for an eye.

Wilson was working at Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Processing Center when Hassan opened fire. At that time, she was nine months pregnant and was about to give birth.

He recalled the moment he first saw soldiers down and heard gunshots after pulling into the parking lot after returning from a lunch break with his mother at the facility.

"Before I had a chance to turn off my engine and actually get out of the vehicle, that's when the shooting started," Wilson said. "A few things crossed my mind. You know, they say you have fight, flight, or freeze. I had all three."

He recounted the chaos surrounding the shooting after he drove into the center building for the first time after taking cover in his car, which he said his supervisor had advised him to do.

"Eventually he came back to me and I thought, 'Well, maybe ... I'm a little out of the chaos.' No, definitely not," Wilson said.

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He continued: I enter my building. Tables are scattered everywhere. This is a complete breakdown. Blood on the wall, blood on the floor, people working on people. And I just kind of locked up."

"A wounded soldier walked in front of me and said, 'He's in the building, he's shooting, get the f—— out of here.'

Wilson said the death penalty would still not bring full justice to the victims of this tragedy.

He called on the federal government for classifying the shooting as "workplace violence" and called for it to be classified as an act of domestic terrorism.

"The government has betrayed us for 17 years," Wilson said. They left this as workplace violence. They never declared it domestic terrorism because it was all, "Hey, we have to be politically correct and watch out for his rights." Well, what about my salary? And what about me? And what about my family? And what about those who were murdered? And what about those who were injured?"

In a letter to Trump, Wilson asked to re-identify this shooting as domestic terrorism.

"It's time to heal," Wilson said. And that healing cannot begin until the situation is completely corrected, until there is complete justice.

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