Retired Army Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot seven times when former U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan committed a terror attack at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009, is speaking out about healing and forgiveness.
In many ways, Lunsford is a total miracle. Looking back, he’s shocked he survived after 13 people were murdered and more than 30 were injured.
“Especially looking at where the shots were located and what vital organs that could have been hit or what vital organs that were hit,” he said of his stunning survival. “And just the mere fact that I’m sitting here talking to you right now is a miracle within itself that lets me know that it wasn’t time for me to go home yet.”
Reflecting back on the day of the terror attack, Lunsford said he can still remember the “smell of death” — a taste and smell that “never leaves you.”
He wasn’t close with Hasan, a former psychiatrist, but knew of him and had worked with him just two weeks before the attack. Afterward, Lunsford said he struggled emotionally and spiritually with hatred.
“It was definitely challenging simply because there were days that I literally hated that man,” he said. “Hated so much to the point where the things that I would have done to him wouldn’t have been nice.”
But Lunsford eventually reached forgiveness through family and his Christian faith. He came to realize the importance of forgiveness.
“I myself could not heal and progress along my road of recovery if I didn’t forgive that man,” he said. “It wasn’t easy.”
Ultimately, Lunsford reached a point where anger no longer overtook him.
He also reacted to the fact that Hasan’s death sentence will be carried out via firing squad in December. The Pentagon has said the Dec. 3 event will be livestreamed — something that has since become uncertain based on conflicting reports within the administration.
Lunsford is OK with the execution, but he’s not in favor of livestreaming it.
“I think that it should be viewed by a select group of people, one, which should be the families of the deceased and the families of the survivors and the survivors themselves to be able to view this execution,” he said. “Now, I know a lot of upstanding Americans, they’re mad about what happened that day, and they equally want to be a part of the firing squad, or they want to see the execution.”
But he doesn’t believe this is the right move to treat the event like a “pay-per-view event or like a ‘John Wick’ movie.”
“This involves a lot of pain, suffering, undue hardship, a lot of emotional challenges and mental challenges and roadblocks,” Lunsford said.
He said his own family has also had to deal with the tragedy of what happened that day and that holidays will never be the same. Lunsford still wonders if he could have protected people better that day — something that remains with him.
In the end, he believes livestreaming the event will “send a false message.”
“It’s going to send a message like we glorify war, which we don’t,” Lunsford said. “There’s nothing pretty about war at all. There’s nothing pretty or glamorous about anybody dying or taking one’s life.”
Lunsford said the Fort Hood attack never changed his Christian faith, but that it forced him to ask questions about why this man inflicted so much pain and evil on others.
“I want the public to understand, it’s not that I don’t want you to see it,” he said. “I just think that, step outside the box and it’s not a form of entertainment. This is something where someone did a horrendous act, and they’re paying for that act, and in the method that they’re paying for the act is not something that is glorious about it.”
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