History, Politics And Current Affairs

...On December 29, 1890, units of the US Army surrounded a Lakota Sioux encampment at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. They were there to disarm adherents of the Ghost Dance movement, which claimed that a Messiah was returning to lead the Sioux to reconquer their lands, and that performing the Ghost Dance ceremony made warriors bulletproof.

The lead unit that morning was the reconstituted 7th Cavalry Regiment.

The result was exactly what one might think was going to happen.

A relative handful of warriors, likely about a hundred, were in the camp and the rest mostly women, children, and the elderly. Initially the disarming started off smoothly enough, but Ghost Dancers began haranguing the warriors and things became more tense. A fight broke out, and someone fired a shot. After that, there was no way it was going to end in anything other than the way it did. The Lakota warriors were convinced they were righteous and invulnerable; the 7th Cav had a score to settle.

When it was over, the 7th had lost 31 KIA, 30 WIA. The Ghost Dancers lost 90 KIA and only a handful of wounded - but the 7th didn't stop shooting as the Ghost Dancers went down, and the official US numbers list 200 civilians dead, and fifty wounded.

And afterwards the War Department awarded 19 Medals Of Honor. By way of comparison, there were 27 at Iwo Jima, fourteen posthumously, and just thirty post-Vietnam.

Which brings us to yesterday, when SecDef directed the formation of a board to review said MoHs:

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stori ... ee-medals/

Back in the day, there were only a handful of official US military decorations, and the CMOH was one of them - and it was handed out to a liberal extent that seems jaw-dropping today. In one instance, an entire Union Army regiment got them for reenlisting. Now, those medals - and many others pre-WWI - were revoked a while back, but the Wounded Knee medals have stayed. IMHO, this is something far overdue. At the best possible interpretation, Wounded Knee was a horrifying overreaction that was treated as a glorious Army victory by people who had every reason to obscure the truth, and the medals awarded that day were part of that process.

There may have been some MOH level heroism that day, but against a mostly unarmed group of people, there weren't 19 examples of it.

Mike

So when I first read about this I was against it purely for the can of worms it opened for other events going forwards. Then I read about the 1916 review and removal of quite a few civil war ones so it does have precedent. It also reclaimed the ones awarded to the union regiment who signed on after end of enlistment to defend Washington.

As a more general point the level of heroism required for Victoria Cross awards has gone up over time similar to the MOH as you posted. With the VC it was also a question of few other awards being available when it was established. The gratuity that went with it on establishment was essentially the only pension available to enlisted men. Certainly actions in Afghanistan have been awarded a Military Cross when in the Boer war they would probably have been a VC.

I’m in two minds on this.

On the one hand, this was an egregiously despicable action against non-combatant civilians and today would be regarded as murder.

On the other hand, the idea of reviewing the award of gallantry/ bravery decorations from many years after the event- particularly in light of the changes in political ideology seen across the western world in the last few decades, especially given the latest “fad” beliefs/ wokeness/ progressivism/ social constructionism/ whatever it’s being called this week- gives me pause for doubt.

On the gripping hand, the subsequent discovery of new information or evidence pursuant to a decoration should inform the awarding authorities of a need to review, one way or the other.

I'm more or less with Craig on this one.

The awards should have been withdrawn a while ago. While the standards at the time were different, it was more of a participation medal in a highly published event rather than one for gallantry in action.

I would also review, and probably revoke, MOH's given to officers O7 and above for events not in combat operations with the enemy. These generally aren't medals for heroic activities, they are 'I Wuz There' medals for pushing paper.

What you said, the MOH used to be the go to medal before WW1. It shares little bit the name with yje one awarded later.

And Wounded Knee is loooong known as a bloody disgrace. Revoking the medals changes nothing about that.

And in any case medals awarded should not be revoked by administrative taste of the day. Their bad decisions should be left as a warning.

It's not so much reviewing is the issue, it's the people doing it.