Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Thursday evening that soldiers who participated in the 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee will keep their Medals of Honor.
“Under my direction, we’re making it clear, without hesitation, that the soldiers who fought in the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890 will keep their medals, and we’re making it clear that they deserve those medals,” Hegseth said in a video that was posted on social platform X.
“This decision is now final, and their place in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate,” he continued. “We salute their memory, we honor their service, and we will never forget what they did.”
In late July 2024, then-Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin ordered a five-person board to review the honors given to troops at Wounded Knee, where Native American women and children were killed by U.S. soldiers.
The Biden administration said the board would look at each recipient’s service and record individually to make sure “no soldier was recognized for conduct that did not merit recognition under the standards applicable at the time.”
“Now, upon deliberation, that panel concluded that these brave soldiers should, in fact, rightfully, keep their medals from actions in 1890. The report was concluded in October of 2024,” Hegseth continued. “Yet despite this clear recommendation, former Secretary Lloyd Austin, for whatever reason, I think we know he was more interested in being politically correct than historically correct, chose not to make a final decision.”
He added that such “careless inaction has allowed for their distinguished recognition to remain in limbo until now.”
The Wounded Knee massacre took place in late 1890, as U.S. soldiers were battling Native Americans across the country, with tribes resisting. The Army’s 7th Cavalry Regiment was enforcing a ban on the Ghost Dance, a Native American spiritual practice, when U.S. troops detained a group of Lakota tribe members near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota.
After trying to recover weapons from those arrested, a firearm went off and U.S. troops opened fire, killing at least 250 Lakota men, women and children. About 25 U.S. soldiers were also killed, likely due to friendly fire.
Earlier this year, Hegseth ordered that a Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, which was previously taken down, be restored and refurbished.