10/12/2026
I listened to a retired general speaking about the homecoming of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and he related how his wife once told him there are three things every American should witness: a military deployment, a homecoming, and a memorial service.
One is heartbreaking. One is joyous. And one is a reminder that some families will never get their homecoming.
He was visibly emotional, thinking about sailors finally returning to their families after months at sea, some meeting their newborn children for the first time. These are solemn and beautiful occasions because they belong to the people who serve and the families who sacrifice alongside them.
Pete Hegseth wants to add a fourth occasion: a livestreamed ex*****on by firing squad.
I can practically picture him with the ring light out, hair and makeup finished, camera angles mapped, and somebody selecting the soundtrack. Maybe a dramatic countdown.
Nidal Hasan murdered 13 people at Fort Hood. His crimes were monstrous. But he is now paralyzed, and the proposal is to have American soldiers shoot him while the world watches. Trump says he’ll decide whether the livestream proceeds, but Hegseth has already made his enthusiasm for the broadcast clear. If no one volunteers for the duty, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hegseth step up, after a makeup touchup, to do the “honors.”
According to reporting in The Washington Sun, at least six soldiers have sought advice about possible religious exemptions from the firing squad. One said he didn’t want his children or family watching him pull a trigger.
Now there is a man whose understanding of strength I can respect.
Years ago, a psychologist told me that most human beings have a deep aversion to killing another member of their own species. The precise percentages are debatable, but the tiny percentage that don’t recoil, she suggested, may be psychopaths. We are supposed to hesitate before taking a human life. Hesitation is part of our humanity.
This isn’t combat. Hasan isn’t advancing on anyone with a weapon. He’s a paralyzed man in a wheelchair, convicted of monstrous crimes, awaiting ex*****on. His victims deserve justice, and their families deserve compassion. None of that requires pretending he has ceased to be human.
I suspect there will be plenty of rhetoric designed to make that distinction disappear. Call him a monster often enough, and perhaps it becomes easier to ask someone else to pull the trigger. The person holding the r***e still has to live with what follows.
Hegseth can deliver his lines for the cameras, extol the warrior ethos, and move on to his next television appearance. The soldier assigned to that firing squad doesn’t get to leave the experience behind when the broadcast ends.
If that soldier doesn’t want his children to watch him kill a defenseless man, I would suggest he understands something about courage and responsibility that no amount of televised swagger can teach.
Perhaps my idea of patriotism is old-fashioned. I see it in the sailor holding his baby for the first time; the spouse waiting on the pier; the family standing beside a flag-draped coffin. I see it in people who accept terrible responsibilities without mistaking them for opportunities to perform toughness.
There is more manliness in a soldier’s reluctance to take a life than in all the swaggering, chest-thumping warrior cosplay Washington can produce.
The general’s three ceremonies are about honoring sacrifice. The proposed fourth would turn an act of killing into something the public can consume. Turn our true warriors into props for Hegseth’s reality TV version of defending the country. We can do without the ring light, thank you.
