Wounded Knee Massacre: Pentagon Confirms Medals of Honor Will Not Be Rescinded

More than a century after the Wounded Knee Massacre, the U.S. Defense Department has confirmed that the 20 soldiers awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their role in the 1890 killings will keep their medals, despite long-standing demands to revoke them.

On September 25, 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in a video posted to X that the soldiers who opened fire on the Lakota Sioux near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota would retain the nation’s highest military honor.

“We salute their memory, we honor their service, and we will never forget what they did,” Hegseth said.

A controversial review quietly ended

The Pentagon had launched a review in July 2024 to reconsider whether the medals should stand. A five-member panel examined the issue and reached its conclusion in October 2024, recommending that the awards remain in place. According to Hegseth, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin chose not to act on the recommendation before leaving office.

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

The Pentagon declined to provide further comment.

The Wounded Knee Massacre: 1890 tragedy

The Wounded Knee Massacre marked one of the darkest chapters of U.S. history. On December 29, 1890, the U.S. Army surrounded Lakota Sioux Chief Big Foot and his band of 350 men, women, and children. Ordered to surrender their weapons, the group complied, but a single shot was fired during the confiscation.

The Army then unleashed a barrage of gunfire, killing as many as 300 Lakota Sioux, about half of them women and children. Historians note that at least two dozen U.S. soldiers also died, many from friendly fire. Survivors described frozen bodies left unburied for days before being dumped into a mass grave.

Maj. Gen. Nelson Miles, who assumed command after the massacre, condemned the event, writing in 1891:

“I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee.”

Calls for rescinding medals

The decision to allow the medals to stand is drawing criticism. During his 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden called the awards “abhorrent.” Earlier this year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced legislation to rescind the honors, arguing that recognizing soldiers for a massacre is an insult to Native communities.

The site of the massacre has long been a place of mourning and protest. In 1973, the American Indian Movement staged a 71-day standoff with federal agents at Wounded Knee, bringing renewed attention to the massacre and Native rights.

Today, the Wounded Knee Memorial and cemetery mark the site where generations of Lakota Sioux continue to honor their ancestors.

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