Hegseth says Wounded Knee soldiers will keep their Medals of Honor

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

Updated 9:02 PM EDT, September 25, 2025


WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that he has decided that the 20 soldiers who received the Medal of Honor for their actions in 1890 at Wounded Knee will keep their awards in a video posted to social media Thursday evening.

Hegseth’s predecessor, Lloyd Austin, ordered the review of the awards in 2024 after a Congressional recommendation in the 2022 defense bill — itself a reflection of efforts by some lawmakers to rescind the awards for those who participated in the bloody massacre 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 show that the U.S. Army, which was in the midst of amid a campaign to repress the tribes in the area, killed an estimated 250 Native Americans, including women and children, of the Lakota Sioux tribe, while attempting to disarm Native American fighters who had already surrendered at their camp.

“We’re making it clear that (the soldiers) deserve those medals,” Hegseth said in the video, before adding that “their place in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/wounded-knee-hegseth-soldiers-medal-of-honor-0310c47952ad7aeabb176f94d8af4d52

[moniss]

1. Their place in infamy. nt

[RazorbackExpat]

2. Hegseth is totally unfit for his job

Just another DUI hire in the Trump regime

[LiberalArkie]

7. He is exactly the man for the job according to the HR Department in Moscow

[William Seger]

3. Wounded Knee is an extrodinary national embarrassment, and so is Hegseth

... and so is the faux-king racist who appointed him, and so is the racist MAGA cult of turd worshipers who brought him to power.

[thomski64]

12. ..is there a Medal for Genocide?

...if so perhaps we should have one reserved for Netanyahu..

Don't forget a Medal for the "Battle" of Mei Lai and it's hero Lt I'm Calley

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Yes, their place in history is they actively massacred innocent people.

[Botany]

5. People needed medals for the murder of Native Americans on their own reservation?

The rewriting of history by a fascist administration from putting up pictures of Robert E. Lee @ West
Point, trying to get the Smithsonian to stop denigrating slave owners, and now letting the awards of
soldiers who massacred starving Lakota after they did a dance called the “Ghost Dance” on themfrozen
ground.

[Paladin]

6. Mighty white of you, Hegseth. As usual. (nt)

[Grins]

8. "no longer up for debate!" You sure about that?

Or will it open a new era of reflection?

Jesus. This? The calling for heavier enforcement of the death penalty today, in the only jurisdiction where he has a say? A jurisdiction that has a significant population of people of color....?

But you keep going, you crazy diamond! The mid-terms are gong to be lit!!!!

[roscoeroscoe]

16. "'Cause I said so!"

Sure Lord Farquar. Asswipe.

[Lonestarblue]

9. The US version of genocide.

[AverageOldGuy]

10. Next up:

Medal of Honor for all Custer's men as well as Custer.

Meanwhile, last week, I finished reading "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" for the third time. I suspect Hogsbreath has ordered the book to be removed from military libraries.

[Ocelot II]

11. Maybe William Calley will get a posthumous Medal of Honor for My Lai.

[Deuxcents]

13. The slaughter of defenseless children, women and old men is definitely in a place of our history.

And that’s a fact. Awarding medals for such a cowardly act of retaliation suits Hegseth perfectly

[djacq]

14. Trump Administration... Promoters of White Supremacy

"Some estimates placed the number of dead as high as 300."

Wounded Knee Massacre
1890 South Dakota massacre of Lakota:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre?wprov=sfla1

[liberalgunwilltravel]

15. When is the end of this cretin coming

Your place in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate, you little fuck. And you deserve every bad thing is going to happen to you when you are held to account. Justice may be slow, but it will come.

[Codifer]

17. Fuck hogsbreath.

What's next, Medals of Honour for calle and medina?

How about a unit citation for blackwater for action in Iraq?

[CTyankee]

18. Hitting the sauce again, Kegsbreath?

[Bayard]

19. No respect or knowledge of history

"It was the fourth day after Christmas in the year of Our Lord 1890. When the first torn and bleeding bodies were carried into the candlelit church, those who were conscious could see Christmas greenery hanging from the open rafters. Across the chancel front above the pulpit was strung a crudely lettered banner: PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN."

[Buddyzbuddy]

20. Wrong again, Hogsbreath.

It will be debated again, as soon as your tenure and this failed Administration is over.
Well, at least it will go on the list of things to do. It's a really long list.