WOUNDED KNEE MEDALS

Rescind medals of honor for massacre James F. Mitchell


Recently, an attempt to assuage the Native Americans in South Dakota by declaring a public apology was suggested in South Dakota. Quite possibly it also is the time to give a little more of the story of one sordid event that took place and never has been fully told.On the cold, crisp morning of Dec. 29, 1890, the Sioux Chief Big Foot and some 350 of his followers were camped on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek. Surrounding their camp was a force of U.S. troops charged with the responsibility of arresting Big Foot and disarming his warriors.In fear of an Indian uprising, the order went out to arrest Chief Sitting Bull at the Standing Rock Reservation. Sitting Bull was killed in the attempt on Dec. 15. Chief Big Foot was next on the list.
When he heard of Sitting Bull's death, Big Foot led his people south to seek protection at the Pine Ridge Reservation. The army intercepted the band on Dec. 28 and brought them to the edge of Wounded Knee to camp. The next morning the chief, wracked with pneumonia and dying, sat among his warriors and powwowed with the army officers. Suddenly the sound of a shot pierced the early morning gloom. Within seconds, the charged atmosphere erupted as Indian scurried to retrieve their discarded rifles and troopers fired volley after volley into the Sioux camp.The American public's reaction to the battle at the time generally was favorable. Twenty Medals of Honor were awarded for the action. A decade later, when these were reviewed, Gen. Nelson A. Miles called this a "massacre" and not a battle. Native Americans are calling these "medals of dis-Honor."
Historian Will G. Robinson has noted the discrepancy between these 20 medals handed out following the events at Wounded Knee and the fact that only three such Medals of Honor were awarded among the 64,000 South Dakotans who fought for four years of World War II.By the time it was over, more than 300 men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux lay dead. Twenty-five troopers also died during the massacre, some believed to have been the victims of "friendly fire." Around 150 Lakota are believed to have fled, and an unknown number died of hypothermia.Now contrast this with a more recent massacre during the Vietnam War. The My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968, with 2nd Lt. William Calley in charge and the mass murder of 347-504 unarmed citizens of the Republic of Vietnam, mostly civilians and the majority of them women and children and conducted by our own U.S. Army.
Eventually, Calley was charged with several counts of premeditated murder in September 1969, and 25 other officers and enlisted men were later charged with related crimes. It was another two months before the American public learned about the massacre and trials. After a 10-month-long trial, in which he claimed that he was following orders from his commanding officer, Calley was convicted, on Sept. 10, 1971, of premeditated murder for ordering the shootings. The trial resulted in a conviction, and on March 31, 1971, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. However on April 1, only a day after Calley was sentenced, President Richard Nixon ordered him released from prison pending appeal. On Aug. 30, 1971, his sentence was reduced to 20 years.The comparison between these "massacres" is very similar. Both were overwhelmingly strong forces against unarmed civilians. However, in an attempt to rectify the bad feelings about having given these 20 Medals of Honor to soldiers in the Wounded Knee Massacre vs. a conviction for Lt. Calley for basically the same thing, it would seem obvious to have these 20 medals rescinded.