Pentagon to review Medals of Honor awarded for Wounded Knee massacre
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has directed the Pentagon to review 20 Medals of Honor awarded for actions during the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre,in which the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry opened fire on hundreds of Native Americans, including women and children.
The effort is meant to ensure no soldiers were recognized for “conduct inconsistent with the nation’s highest military honor,” the Defense Department said Wednesday in anews release. Disqualifying actions include attacking civilians or combatants who already surrendered, murder, rape and “engaging in any other act demonstrating immorality,” Austin wrote in a July 19 memo directing the review.
The news, first reported by Military.com, follows requests from South Dakota state lawmakers and members of Congress, and over two decades of pressure from Native American groups. “The fact that the title of the event is ‘massacre’ would not seem to be the kind of thing you award medals for,” said South Dakota state Sen. Lee Schoenbeck (R), who helped oversee a state resolution earlier this year calling for an official inquiry into the awards. “It’s time to get it right.”
On Dec. 29, 1890, U.S. Army soldierskilled an estimated 350Lakota people in the southwestern corner of South Dakota in what is now part of thePine Ridge Reservation. Historians believe the event was preceded by a single shot stemming from a disagreement between the soldiers and Native American warriors they were attempting to disarm.
“I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee,” Maj. Gen. Nelson A. Miles, who was an Army commander during the American Indian Wars, wrote in aNovember 1891 letter. Miles wrote that women, small children and babies were among the dead.
The citations for some troops who were awarded the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest honor, after the massacre are simply for “bravery” or for continuing to fight while wounded, according to the Defense Department memo.
Criteria for awarding Medals of Honor during the Indian Wars was subject to much less scrutiny compared with today, when the process can take years. More than 425 Medals of Honor were awarded for action during that campaign, according to theDepartment of Veterans Affairs.
During the Civil War, the lack of stringent award oversight contributed to veterans receiving the highest number of Medals of Honor ever — over 1,500 — compared with veterans of later conflicts, according to VA. In some cases, recipients were awarded a medal for recapturing unit flags.
Today, the Medal of Honor is awarded based on criteria drafted in 1963, and is reserved for troops who are distinguished by the highest level of bravery and who risk their lives while fighting against an enemy of the United States.
A report on the review of awards from the Wounded Knee massacre, as well as decisions on whether they should be rescinded, is expected within three months, according to Austin’s memo.
Members of Congress in 2019 introducedlegislationto rescind the awards, known as the Remove the Stain Act.
“The horrific massacre of hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee should be condemned, not celebrated with Medals of Honor,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who in 2021 was among the senatorsto reintroduce the act, said in an email to The Post on Thursday.
She called the review “an important step toward righting this profound wrong and removing this stain on our nation’s history.”
Oliver Semans, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe who haspreviously advocatedto strip the awards, said he is pleased about the Pentagon’s review. But he said he is skeptical about whether the review could be undertaken thoroughly on the timeline laid out in the memo.
“I don’t want it just to happen to get it off the table and move on,” Semans said. “We’re talking about the descendants who lost their relatives there, and they should really be given true justice.”
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While they are at at it, they might want to revisit the Washita "Battlefield" where Custer and his cavalry rode into Black Kettle's sleeping camp and slaughtered everyone they could. It is the sight of a massacre, not a battlefield.
There are many other "Military Victories" where the calvary rode into Native American camps and murdered/killed/massacred all they could - under the "flag" of Indian hostilities. What hostilities could/can sleeping elders, women and children be creating?????
Those officers and enlisted troopers did nothing heroic. This review is long overdue!
Well, it took long enough!
in a couple weeks im headed north for the annual hunt , im usually on the Fetterman battlefield historic site , son in law always asks why i hunt there , i tell him its one of the few places , i feel an eerie sense of calm and peace , even if i see nothing , i see and find something . Last time i was there i went down an old wash , right on the bank about a half dozen arrow heads , left them be , didnt feel right to take them . grand son has found a few old horseshoes in that wash too.
Old Ft Phil Kearny historic site is just over the bluff , i usually climb to the top on state land , and can almost see Fetterman and the path that was took and how the battle took shape . and not far from there is the site of the wagon box fight and its historic museum .
Wonder if they will also review the sand creek massacre , i think that ones due as well., though if i remember right that was done by Colorado militia and not federal troops .
Finally