Did 'Task & Purpose' publish an article implying that 'Sarah Miller' was appointed the 'first executioner' in the Nidal Hasan's case? No, that's not true: Neither the outlet's website nor its social media accounts contained such a story. The soldier pictured in the fake screenshot is actually Sgt. Samantha Wendt, a canine handler whose photos appear on a U.S. government website. No established news outlet reported anything close to the alleged appointment.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on Oct. 10, 2026, by @Pedro-The-Penguin-Who-Strayed. The image from it read:
First Executioner Identified as SGT Sarah Miller, NCO of the Year.
Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, still taking suggestions for firearms that provide 'the most results'.
SEAN PARKER / PUBLISHED OCT 8, 2026 4:28 PM CDT
This is what the shared picture looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @Pedro-The-Penguin-Who-Strayed on Facebook.)
Similar images of the same person could be found here and here (archived here and here) on the government website (archived here) that shares visual materials about the activities of the U.S. army with the press. The captions identified the servicemember as:
U.S. Army Sgt. Samantha Wendt, a canine handler.
A search for the keywords that included the woman's name seen here (archived here) across articles indexed by Google News showed zero reports confirming her purported assignment to participate in any executions.
What looked like a screenshot of the supposed article went viral in the aftermath of the Pentagon announcement (archived here) that it would livestream (archived here) the execution of Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people and wounded dozens more at Fort Hood, Texas. His death penalty was scheduled to be carried out by a firing squad on Dec. 3, 2026.
"Task & Purpose", whose logo was seen in what seemed to be a screenshot, is a media outlet founded in 2014 that describes itself (archived here) as "a voice for the military community" that "continues to serve that community with accurate reporting and great storytelling".
A search across the articles on its website showed no matches (archived here) for what social media attributed to the outlet. Lead Stories also searched (archived here) for Samantha Wendt's name across the materials published by "Task & Purpose", but that did not produce any results, either.
Lead Stories checked the outlet's pages on X, Instagram and Facebook, but did not find the article in question.
A broad search for the exact headline of the purported piece on Google only showed several posts on social media (archived here) sharing the image reviewed in this fact check, but none of the posters was associated with an established media organization.
One social media account on Instagram (archived here) explicitly linked the supposed selection of the "first executioner" to Hasan's case. Yet, a search on Google News for any reports confirming a purported announcement that "Sarah Miller" became a member of the firing squad scheduled to carry out that inmate's death penalty showed no matches (archived here).
