Van Orden appears to volunteer for execution by Fort Hood firing squad

USA TODAY NETWORK

MADISON – One of Wisconsin’s congressmen has apparently volunteered to participate in an execution by firing squad, the first to be approved in the United States since World War II.

Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden sent a series of messages earlier this week suggesting he would volunteer to participate in the execution of Nidal Hasan, a former U.S. Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

On October 5, Van Orden posted on X, saying he would free up his schedule.

“These radical Islamists (sic) must understand the message: you kill Americans, someone else will raise your children,” he said in a message published at 7:49 p.m.

At 10:18 p.m. that evening, he said “volunteer” in response to a message from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which was “Justice.”

When asked for comment on the posts, a spokesperson for Van Orden did not respond.

The U.S. Department of Defense did not respond to questions about whether Van Orden had officially volunteered or would be present for the execution. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on October 8 that the execution would be broadcast live in public.

Hasan was working as an Army psychiatrist in 2009 when he opened fire at Fort Hood, according to an NPR report, at a treatment center where troops were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan.

He shouted “Allahu akbar,” according to the report, meaning “God is great,” before killing 13 people and injuring 32 others. The attack ended when civilian police officers shot Hasan, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

Hasan represented himself at a 2013 trial, during which he admitted that evidence showed he was the shooter. He said he had “switched sides” and turned against the United States because of its actions in the Middle East, according to the NPR report. Hasan is an American-born Muslim.

Hasan was found guilty on all counts, discharged from military service and sentenced to death. An automatic appeal process ended in 2025 when the Supreme Court rejected his latest request.

Van Orden, a retired senior U.S. Navy SEAL who is running for his seat representing Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District — one of the most closely watched elections in the country — supported the U.S. war in Iran, citing “radical Muslim mullahs” who “have held the world economic hostage for half a century by willy-nilly closing the Strait of Hormuz with conventional weapons.”

“If the Iranians ever received a nuclear weapon, or if they obtained a nuclear weapon, our decision matrix would become binary: either we, one, would go into nuclear war with these radical Muslim mullahs… or two, we would definitely cede 20% of the world’s petrochemical production to the radical Muslim mullahs by giving them the Strait of Hormuz in perpetuity,” he said in a recent interview.

“Is it politically expedient that President Donald J. Trump is currently addressing a problem that has existed for half a century? It is not,” he added. “But we need to start thinking generationally, not about the next midterm elections. »

In a statement, Cooke said Van Orden’s comments were “frankly disturbing.”

“This is just another example of how Derrick Van Orden’s priorities are wrong,” she said. “Instead of lowering gasoline and diesel prices, ending the war in Iran, or reopening our rural hospitals, he is focused on participating in a public execution.”

Haley King, a spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party, called the post “bizarre.”

“Van Orden, a member of Congress in one of the most volatile seats in the country, spends his time on Twitter volunteering to participate in a state-sponsored public execution in another state instead of fighting to end a war that has driven up costs for Wisconsinites in the 3rd District,” she said in a statement. “Van Orden often exhibits bizarre behavior online, but this is alarming, even for him.”

Laura Schulte can be reached at (protected email) and on X @SchulteLaura.

This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Van Orden appears to volunteer for execution by Fort Hood firing squad.

Reporting by Laura Schulte and Valérie Yurk, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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