Soldiers to keep medals for Wounded Knee massacre

Cybele Mayes-Osterman

USA TODAY

In 1890, the U.S. Army herded hundreds of Lakota Sioux tribal members into a clearing near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, ordered them to hand over their weapons and opened fire, killing as many as 300 people, around half of them women and children.

The 20 soldiers who were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor – the highest military honor – for their role in the massacre will keep that award, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Sept.25.

'We salute their memory, we honor their service and we will never forget what they did,' Hegseth, formally known as the Secretary of Defense, said in a video statement posted to X.

In 2024, the Department of Defense announced a review of those 20 medals. A five-expert panel was tasked with putting together a recommendation for President Joe Biden. The results were not publicly released.

But Hegseth said the review had already reached a conclusion in October 2024 that the 'brave soldiers' should keep their medals, and that Lloyd Austin, then the defense secretary, 'chose not to make a final decision.'

'Under my direction,' Hegseth said, those soldiers 'will keep their medals, and we’re making it clear that they deserve those medals.'

The Pentagon said it did not have anything to add to Hegseth’s comments.

In the late 19th century, Indigenous Americans put up a final push against being forced onto reservations. Already, the population faced immiseration and the ravages of diseases like influenza and whooping cough.

In the last days of 1890, the Army intercepted Miniconjou Lakota Chief Big Foot, who sent word he and the 350 people with him would hand over their weapons. After nearly 500 U.S. soldiers surrounded the group, they began an aggressive hunt for arms. Most were handed over, but one 'young man of very bad influence,' as he was described by a Sioux witness, discharged his weapon.

The Army opened fire, killing between 250 and 300 people, according to historians’ estimates.

Some two dozen U.S. soldiers were killed – most by friendly fire, historians later found.

After several days, half-frozen bodies left outside were pushed into a mass grave. A memorial now stands at the site.

Maj. Gen. Nelson Miles, who later took over the Army unit that carried out the bloodshed, wrote the next year, 'I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee.'

Biden wrote to an advocacy group during his 2020 campaign for president that it was 'abhorrent' that soldiers involved in the massacre were awarded the medal. In May, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill to rescind the 20 medals.