Senators call on Pentagon to shorten deadline for review of Wounded Knee medals

Two senators on Thursday called on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to accept documents and testimony from the public during the Pentagon’s review of the Medals of Honor awarded to U.S. troops for their actions at Wounded Knee.

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Michael Rounds (D-Maryland), members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote to Austin and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who is helping to conduct the review.

The Pentagon announced on July 24 that it would establish a special panel to decide whether to keep the medals or revoke them. The panel is expected to submit a report to Austin with recommendations for each recipient by October 15. Austin will then present those recommendations to President Joe Biden.

According to the Department of Defense, U.S. troops were awarded 20 Medals of Honor for their actions at Wounded Knee in 1890. At that time, soldiers killed and wounded between 350 and 375 Lakota men, women and children.

Austin called on the U.S. Army to release all historical documents about the massacre, including the personnel files of the award winners, by July 26. Warren and Rounds argue in their letter that the deadline is too early for Native American tribes, victims’ families, historians and academic institutions to share information that should be considered.

In a letter, they called on the committee to continuously accept information from the public.

“Stakeholders … have a wealth of information that is critical to the panel’s consideration,” Warren and Rounds wrote. “Collecting much of this information may take more than just a few days. In addition, many key stakeholders may not have the resources to work within too tight a time frame.”

The killings known as the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. They were part of a larger effort by the U.S. government to oppress the Indian tribes of the Great Plains and exterminate a religious movement called the “Ghost Dance.”

Reports of the Ghost Dance movement prompted the U.S. Army to place reservations under guard. On December 29, 1890, soldiers of the 7th Cavalry Regiment confiscated weapons from Lakota when a fight with a man who was reportedly deaf sparked a chaotic one-sided firefight. When the smoke cleared, dozens of cavalrymen had been wounded or killed by friendly fire—probably from their artillery—and hundreds of Lakota were dead.

A Pentagon memorandum last month lists 20 soldiers who were awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, for their actions that day. One award says a recipient distinguished himself “in a fight with hostile Indians.” Another says a man “volunteered to lead a party into a ravine to dislodge hiding Sioux Indians.”

Some sources said the soldiers saved their comrades, while others simply said the men showed “extraordinary bravery.”

Congress officially apologized for the massacre on the 100th anniversary in 1990, but did not revoke the medals at that time. In 2022, Congress asked the Pentagon to review the awards.

The panel that will review the Medals of Honor will consist of five experts, including two from the Interior Department, the Pentagon memo said. In reviewing the awards, panel members will consider the context of the time and use the 1890 military standards for awarding the Medals of Honor, rather than today’s standards.

The jury will decide whether any of the soldiers did anything that disqualifies them from the award, such as intentionally attacking someone who surrendered in good faith, murdering or raping a prisoner or any other act that “demonstrates immorality,” Austin’s memo said.

In their letter, Warren and Rounds welcomed the review, calling it “long overdue,” and called for transparency from Austin and Haaland throughout the process.

“We … hope that this collaborative process will result in the Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior providing easy, mutual access to the records each agency receives,” the senators wrote. “We are very interested in seeing a review process based on the records and testimony of those involved.”

The Pentagon noted in July that this was not the first time that Medals of Honor had come under scrutiny. In 1916, Congress ordered the Army to review all Medals of Honor awarded since the Civil War. At that time, a panel of five retired generals voted to revoke 911 of the awards. Six of those medals were later reinstated.

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