SECDEF Orders Review of Wounded Knee Medals of Honor

Saturday, July 27, 2024

SECDEF Lloyd J. Austin III has directed the DoD to review the Medals of Honor awarded to approximately 20 soldiers for their actions during the December 1890 engagement at Wounded Knee Creek, SD, to ensure no awardees were recognized for conduct inconsistent with the nation's highest military honor. In 1990, both houses of the US Congress passed a resolution on the historical centennial formally expressing "deep regret" for the massacre.

Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 02:49 AM | 9 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry |

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350 to 375 Native American men, women and children were killed or wounded in America's last major engagement with the Plains Indians. The US Army's 7th Cavalry casualties were 31 KIA and 33 WIA.

Sources:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-army-massacres-indians-at-wounded-knee

https://www.cmohs.org/medal

https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/6-special-benefits-that-medal-of-honor-recipients-are-entitled-to-get/

Comments

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I hope they do a thorough investigation of the event and interview folks who were there when it happened (/sarc).

On a real note, I understand why they're doing it now, but also, why review awards from over 100 years ago in a different historical context than the time they were awarded?

The MoH has different awarding guidelines today than back in the day when it was awarded for saving folks from drowning to an entire regiment being awarded it for reenlisting to serve.

#1 | Posted by GOnoles92 at 2024-07-27 10:09 AM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

why review awards from over 100 years ago in a different historical context than the time they were awarded?

You know why.

#2 | Posted by oneironaut at 2024-07-27 10:30 AM | Reply

Virtue signaling.

To Gono's point, the standards have changed. You could probably review every award prior to WWI and fine some that were not justified under current requirements.

#3 | Posted by madbomber at 2024-07-27 11:38 AM | Reply

#1
Here's the announcement - media.defense.gov - which is actually pretty nuanced.

Wounded Knee was an unholy mess and there's no question fleeing Lakota were pursued and killed far from the site of initial action. So even by the standards for awarding the medal in effect in 1890, the question revolves around behaviors of those 20 recipients that day in December 1890. The frontier army itself was divided at the time about the whole Ghost Dance campaign, and especially what happened at Wounded Knee. The medals may have been a way of trying to end that discussion.

#4 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2024-07-27 01:02 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

Doc

You wonder a) if payback for LTC George Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876) was in the minds of the Medal of Honor awarding committee; b) did the 7th Cavalry fifers play the "Garry Owen" during the massacre?

Either way, these final internal expansion wars led the way for the US to begin expanding overseas, starting with the Spanish-American War in 1898. "The white man's burden" continued.

#5 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2024-07-27 01:57 PM | Reply

Make a pyramid out of human skulls. What could go wrong?

#6 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2024-07-27 11:41 PM | Reply

#5
Definitely a big "yes " on the ensuing period of international expansionism and imperialism. The myth in the US, of course, is that the country never, ever embarked on an imperialistic course. It was all just part of the sky god's plan in ushering in that tired fable of "American Exceptionalism."

#7 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2024-07-28 06:36 AM | Reply

Doc

After the indigenous pacification process was complete, American politicians wanted to use the 1890s World Fairs held in Chi, NYC, Atlanta and the Spanish-American War (1898) to finally heal the North-South wounds of the Civil War in order to compete with the European imperial powers.

Note the Union and Confederate officers shaking hands in this 1898 propaganda poster. They might be Civil War veterans Generals Joseph Wheeler (CSA) and William Shafter (USA):

www.sunnycv.com

#8 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2024-07-28 07:04 AM | Reply

Thanks for posting that.

#9 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2024-07-28 12:48 PM | Reply