Focus on individual conduct instead of massacre doomed Wounded Knee medals review, panelist says
Source: Nebraska Examiner
By: Joshua Haiar - October 6, 2025 4:37 pm
A man who served on the panel that reviewed medals awarded for the Wounded Knee Massacre said a majority of the members focused on individual soldier conduct at the expense of the broader issue: whether any medals should be awarded for a massacre.
Wizipan Little Elk Garriott, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, told South Dakota Searchlight this week that he served on the review panel. He was the Department of the Interior’s principal deputy assistant secretary for Indian affairs at the time, and was one of the department’s two panel members.
He said the other three members of the panel represented the Department of Defense.
“They were looking for evidence that individuals committed war crimes, essentially,” Garriott said. “The broader question — that this was a massacre in which women and children were killed and therefore not deserving of medals — was simply not part of the conversation.”
A monument erected to victims of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre stands in the middle of the memorial and cemetery on June 30, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
Read more: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/10/06/repub/focus-on-individual-conduct-instead-of-massacre-doomed-wounded-knee-medals-review-panelist-says/
Marta and I visited the memorial in the early 90s.
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Its ridiculous. Anyone taking part in these murders should be reviled, not posthumously rewarded. Its a smack in the face to all Indigenous people. Par for the course.
Its a heinous part of American history.
