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Story highlights

"I am a lot angrier, a lot darker than I used to be," one survivor says

Patrick Zeigler is partially paralyzed after being shot four times

Hasan faces death penalty after being convicted in Fort Hood slayings

He has admitted to the shootings, says he would be a martyr

Surviving victims and family members of the Fort Hood massacre testified in emotional terms Monday over their personal trauma and grief, as the sentencing phase for the convicted murderer's court-martial moved quickly toward a dramatic conclusion.

A military jury could begin considering by late Tuesday whether Maj. Nidal Hasan will get capital punishment for the horrific November 2009 shootings on this sprawling Army base.

The Army Medical Corps officer was convicted Friday on all 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder in connection with the shooting rampage at a Fort Hood deployment processing center. The incident occurred about a month before Hasan was to deploy to Afghanistan.

"I was expected to either die or remain in a vegetative state," said Staff Sgt. Patrick Zeigler, who was shot four times, including in the head. He recovered, but his left side remains partially paralyzed, and he said Monday that he struggles to cope with the injuries.

"It's affected every facet of my personality," he testified. "I am a lot angrier, a lot darker than I used to be."

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Photos:Worst mass shootings in U.S.

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Police direct family members away from the scene of a shooting Sunday, June 12, at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. A gunman opened fire at the club, killing 50 people and injuring at least 53, police said. It is now the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.

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In December, two shooters killed 14 people and injured 21 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, where employees with the county health department were attending a holiday event. The shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, were later killed in a shootout with authorities. The pair were found to be radicalized extremists who planned the shootings as a terror attack, investigators said.

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Police search students outside Umpqua Community College after a deadly shooting at the school in Roseburg, Oregon, in October. Nine people were killed and at least nine were injured, police said. The gunman, Chris Harper-Mercer, committed suicide after exchanging gunfire with officers, a sheriff said.

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A man kneels across the street from the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, following a shooting in June 2015. Police say the suspect, Dylann Roof, opened fire inside the church, killing nine people. According to police, Roof confessed and told investigators he wanted to start a race war. He pleaded not guilty to 33 federal charges in July.

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Police officers walk on a rooftop at the Washington Navy Yard after a shooting rampage in the nation's capital in September 2013. At least 12 people and suspect Aaron Alexis were killed, according to authorities.

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Connecticut State Police evacuate Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Adam Lanza opened fire in the school, killing 20 children and six adults before killing himself. Police said he also shot and killed his mother in her Newtown home.

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James Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to a July 2012 shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Twelve people were killed and dozens were wounded when Holmes opened fire during the midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises." He was sentenced to 12 life terms plus thousands of years in prison.

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A military jury convicted Army Maj. Nidal Hasan of 13 counts of premeditated murder for a November 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. Thirteen people died and 32 were injured.

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Jiverly Wong shot and killed 13 people at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York, before turning the gun on himself in April 2009, police said. Four other people were injured at the immigration center shooting. Wong had been taking English classes at the center.

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Pallbearers carry a casket of one of Michael McLendon's 10 victims. McLendon shot and killed his mother in her Kingston, Alabama, home, before shooting his aunt, uncle, grandparents and five more people. He shot and killed himself in Samson, Alabama, in March 2009.

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Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho went on a shooting spree on the school's campus in April 2007. Cho killed two people at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory and, after chaining the doors closed, killed another 30 at Norris Hall, home to the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department. He wounded an additional 17 people before killing himself.

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Mark Barton walked into two Atlanta trading firms and fired shots in July 1999, leaving nine dead and 13 wounded, police said. Hours later, police found Barton at a gas station in Acworth, Georgia, where he pulled a gun and killed himself. The day before, Barton had bludgeoned his wife and his two children in their Stockbridge, Georgia, apartment, police said.

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Eric Harris, left, and Dylan Klebold brought guns and bombs to Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999. The students gunned down 13 and wounded 23 before killing themselves.

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In October 1991, George Hennard crashed his pickup through the plate-glass window of Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, before shooting 23 people and committing suicide.

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James Huberty shot and killed 21 people, including children, at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, in July 1984. A police sharpshooter killed Huberty an hour after the rampage began.

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Prison guard George Banks is led through the Luzerne County courthouse in 1985. Banks killed 13 people, including five of his children, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in September 1982. He was sentenced to death in 1993 and received a stay of execution in 2004. His death sentence was overturned in 2010.

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Officers in Austin, Texas, carry victims across the University of Texas campus after Charles Joseph Whitman opened fire from the school's tower, killing 16 people and wounding 30 in 1966. Police officers shot and killed Whitman, who had killed his mother and wife earlier in the day.

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Howard Unruh, a World War II veteran, shot and killed 13 of his neighbors in Camden, New Jersey, in 1949. Unruh barricaded himself in his house after the shooting. Police overpowered him the next day. He was ruled criminally insane and committed to a state mental institution.

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Nidal Hasan: 'I am the shooter'

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Twenty percent of Zeigler's brain was removed in the initial surgery, and he has had more than 10 additional procedures. He leaves the service in October on medical retirement but said he will never be fully functional.

Prosecutors began presenting the first of 19 witnesses, including a liaison or family member for each victim killed in the attack. They began describing the impact the shootings had on their lives, part of the "aggravating" evidence the prosecution will use to try to demonstrate why Hasan deserves lethal injection.

A dozen victims and family members took the stand before the court-martial unexpectedly recessed for the day at midafternoon. Base officials would cite only "logistical issues" for the delay and said the judge was meeting in chambers with Hasan, who serves as his own attorney.

The defendant -- who was wounded by military police in the attacks and paralyzed -- repeatedly asked the bench Monday to take brief breaks from the public proceedings, but the court offered no explanations. Proceedings resume Tuesday morning.

During the nearly three-week trial phase, military prosecutors called 89 witnesses and submitted more than 700 pieces of evidence.

Unclear is whether Hasan himself will now present testimony or speak on his own behalf. He serves as his own attorney and has refused to put on a defense in court.

The American-born psychiatrist of Palestinian descent has the opportunity to offer "mitigating" evidence that could persuade the panel to spare his life.

He refused to cross-examine any of the victims and their families testifying.

Angela Rivera lost her husband, Maj. Libardo Caraveo, a 52-year-old clinical psychologist preparing to deploy to Afghanistan when he was gunned down.

When officials rang her doorbell to inform her of the news, 14 hours after the shooting, "All I could say was, I knew it, I just knew he was dead, because he did not call me back" after the incident.

Rivera and Caraveo had three children living in the house at the time, including a 2-year-old.

Rivera testified that her 12-year-old daughter was distraught, quoting her as saying, " 'Mom, I hope who did this understands the pain he has caused all these families.' "

An older daughter could not cope, became suicidal and remains emotionally troubled, Rivera said.

The father of Pvt. Francheska Velez said Hasan's action's left him devastated. His 21-year-old daughter was pregnant at the time of the premeditated murders.

"We can only imagine" what might have been, Shoua Her said quietly. "These past few years haven't been easy being a single mother. ... I miss him a lot, his soft gentle hands, how he held me and made me feel safe and secure.

"I feel dead, yet I'm alive," she added, wiping away tears.

On his own initiative, Hasan admitted early in the court-martial, "The evidence will clearly show that I am the shooter." He has also indicated a willingness to die as a "martyr."

Judge Col. Tara Osborn is likely to instruct the military panel to ignore any direct pleas from Hasan that he be given lethal injection but to decide punishment only on the facts and testimony presented, in accordance with the law.

The stakes in the penalty phase create an unusual dynamic in what was already a very unusual case.

"The U.S. military is not used to this kind of defendant, who apparently wants to die for his crimes. It might take a terrible weight off the jury -- if the inmate wants death, they may say, 'we'll accommodate.' It lessens the burden," said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center. "On the other hand, the military by its nature, and in this time of war, sees a lot of death. They may not desire to add to it and give (Hasan) what he may want. His wishes might have a reverse effect."

But Hasan's confessed rampage against innocents on a domestic military base will be an important consideration for the panel considering his fate.

History may not be on Hasan's or the government's side. The last military execution was in 1961, and only five servicemen sit on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The military has its own legal standards and procedures when trying and appealing capital cases. The U.S. Supreme Court gets the final say, if any petition reaches that far. Of the 11 military death sentences that have completed direct appeal, nine (82%) have been reversed.