Washington DC. 2025 April 2. President Donald Trump during a major "Make America Wealthy Again event held in the White Rose Garden. Liberation Day addressing reciprocal tariffs, Image via Shutterstock.
The spectacle in the works for the Fort Hood shooter is drawing criticism from an unlikely source: his victims.
Jim Acosta obtained an advance copy of a video from Army Staff Sgt. Paul Martin (ret.), who is advocating against the spectacle.
“They open a wound back up and I don’t understand how that’s going to help my healing," he said.
The video was released by VoteVets, the progressive group promoting veterans and military members. Martin said, “It makes us no more than a third-world country. One of those other countries or the cartels that cut people’s heads off.”
While President Donald Trump revealed that the big event isn't "final," it still prompted cringing from those who aren't wild about the optics of a leading democracy holding a public execution.
Major Nidal Hasan, who jumped on a table and opened fire in 2009 and began firing can't even stand to face his executioners. After being shot by police officers, he is paralyzed from the chest down. So, the public event would feature a paralyzed man being rolled out in a wheelchair, where a firing squad would shoot him.
President Donald Trump doesn't appear to think that the event is a done deal.
“There are two thoughts: don’t show it and show it,” Trump said. “So I’ll make a decision ultimately. I know what the military would like to do, but I’ll make a decision.”
But over the weekend, the Pentagon made it clear that it was happening and that it would be livestreamed.
“I don’t want to be part of a clown show,” Martin said. “My message to Pete Hegseth is that this is not a sporting event.”
Hasan killed 13 at the Texas base while shouting Allahu Akbar.”
Martin said that the recovery has been difficult for him and other survivors, particularly emotionally. So, such an event could " set back the recovery process that still continues for the survivors, 17 years later," Acosta wrote.
Martin had just buried his father when he returned to the base that day. He was about to be discharged and was meeting with the physician when Hasan began shooting. Martin was first shot in his arm and decided to play dead until Hasan began walking around shooting people on the floor. That's when Martin was hit in the leg. At that point, Martin panicked. He got up and tried to run. That's when Hasan shot him in the back. Martin couldn't feel anything below his waist after that.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made the decision to livestream the execution "without asking us," Martin revealed. He said that he had no input in the decision-making process and he's upset that it is being politicized.
"It's not about politics. It's that 13 people lost their life that day and 32 of us were wounded," Martin closed.
"It's not a sporting event," Martin told Hegseth.