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WASHINGTON – Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Thursday that 20 soldiers who received the Medal of Honor for their actions at Wounded Knee in 1890 will be allowed to keep their awards. The decision was revealed in a video Hegseth posted to social media Thursday evening.
This announcement follows a review ordered in 2024 by Hegseth’s predecessor, Lloyd Austin. That review was prompted by a congressional recommendation included in the 2022 defense bill, reflecting ongoing efforts by some lawmakers to rescind the awards given to those involved in the bloody events on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation near Wounded Knee Creek.
While the events of that day are sometimes described as a battle, historical records indicate that the U.S. Army, engaged in a campaign to repress tribes in the area, killed an estimated 250 Native Americans, including women and children, of the Lakota Sioux tribe. These casualties occurred as the Army attempted to disarm Native American fighters who had reportedly already surrendered at their camp.
After the fighting, 20 soldiers from the 7th Cavalry Regiment were awarded Medals of Honor. Their citations noted a range of actions, including bravery, efforts to rescue fellow troops, and actions to “dislodge Sioux Indians” concealed in a ravine. The incident also became a celebrated, albeit controversial, part of the regiment’s history; its coat of arms still features the head of a Native American chief to “commemorate Indian campaigns,” according to the military’s Institute of Heraldry.
In 1990, Congress formally apologized to the descendants of those killed at Wounded Knee but did not move to revoke the medals at that time.
According to Secretary Hegseth, the review panel ordered by Austin “concluded that these brave soldiers should, in fact, rightfully keep their medals from actions.” However, an official from the defense secretary’s office could not confirm whether the report Hegseth referenced in his video would be made public.
Hegseth’s decision aligns with President Donald Trump’s executive order issued in March, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which decried efforts to reinterpret American history. Since the order, Hegseth has undertaken multiple actions that have subverted the recommendations of a Congressionally-mandated commission examining the use of Confederate names and references in the military.
He has reverted the names of several Army bases back to their original, Confederate-linked names, though by honoring different figures. Hegseth also restored a 1914 memorial to the Confederacy that had been removed from Arlington National Cemetery. The monument features a classical female figure, crowned with olive leaves, representing the American South, alongside sanitized depictions of slavery.
In September, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, also confirmed that a painting of Gen.
Robert E. Lee dressed in his Confederate uniform was back on display in the school’s library.
The portrait, which shows a Black man leading Lee’s horse in the background, had been hanging in the library since the 1950s before it was placed in storage in 2022.