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Medals of Honor for soldiers who perpetrated Wounded Knee massacre may be rescinded

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Lawmakers took a step last week towards taking back the nation’s highest award for valor from Army troops who perpetrated one of the most infamous Native American massacres in U.S. history.

The legislation to revoke the medals passed the House of Representatives as an amendment to the fiscal 2023 defense policy bill. Similar attempts have made it this far before, however, only to be stymied during compromises between the House and Senate versions of the bill.

Some 20 soldiers received the Medal of Honor following the Dec. 29, 1890, massacre near Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, where troops from the 7th Cavalry and accompanying artillery units killed hundreds of Lakota men, women and children.

The U.S. troops had nearly completed confiscating weapons from a Lakota encampment when a struggle with a reportedly deaf man sparked a chaotic one-sided firefight.

When the smoke cleared, dozens of cavalry troopers were wounded or killed by friendly fire — likely from their artillery — and hundreds of Lakota were dead.

Rep. Kaialiʻi Kahele, D-Hawaii, was the legislation’s primary sponsor, though other members of Congress, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Reuben Gallego, D-Ariz., have pushed for similar legislation in the past. Kahele is a Native Hawaiian.

Dubbed the “Remove the Stain Act,” the legislation’s advocates, which include more than a dozen Native American tribes and groups, say it’s a long-overdue step to right a historical wrong.

“As Congress continues to consider the FY23 NDAA, the most important defense legislative vehicle that is debated each year, we must remind ourselves of the uncomfortable truth that this land – the United States – was taken from indigenous peoples,” said Kahele in a press release. “Although we can never undo the irreparable damage inflicted on indigenous peoples, we can do our best to respect their lands, empower our communities and acknowledge the truth behind our shared history.”

The Senate is yet to pass its version of the defense policy bill, and the two houses of Congress will have to agree on a compromise version of the legislation. If Kahele’s amendment survives the compromise process, it will mark the success of a decades-long effort from Native American advocacy groups and other members of Congress.

Congress officially apologized for the massacre in 1990, near its 100th anniversary, but did not rescind the medals then.

But that’s far from certain. Previously, the act passed as part of the House’s fiscal 2022 defense policy bill, but did not make it into the final compromise legislation.

Military Times deputy editor Leo Shane III contributed to this report.

Davis Winkie is a senior reporter covering the Army, specializing in accountability reporting, personnel issues and military justice. He joined Military Times in 2020. Davis studied history at Vanderbilt University and UNC-Chapel Hill, writing a master’s thesis about how the Cold War-era Defense Department influenced Hollywood’s WWII movies.

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Congress salutes Marine veteran, the last WW2 Medal of Honor recipient

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Congress is giving its ultimate final salute Thursday to Hershel W. “Woody” Williams, a hero of the battle for Iwo Jima who was the last remaining Medal of Honor recipient from World War II.

Williams, who died in June at age 98, is lying in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, a tribute reserved for the nation’s most distinguished private citizens. Only six others have received the honor: civil rights icon Rosa Parks, the Rev. Billy Graham and four Capitol police officers.

Just 21, Williams was a Marine corporal when U.S. forces came ashore on the strategic Japanese island in early 1945.

Williams moved ahead of his unit and eliminated a series of Japanese machine gun positions. Facing small-arms fire, he fought for four hours, repeatedly returning to prepare demolition charges and obtain flamethrowers. President Harry Truman awarded him the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest decoration, later that year.

But the new tribute to Williams is about more than his bravery in combat service. It serves as recognition for a generation of heroes, now dwindling in numbers, who fought in World War II.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said Williams wanted to lie in honor as a way to recognize every Medal of Honor recipient from that war.

Lawmakers have lauded Williams throughout the week, marveling that he was so young during his actions at Iwo Jima, Japan. They have hailed his public service following his military career, which included establishing a foundation that works with local stakeholders to create monuments for Gold Star families of the fallen throughout the country.

Williams was well known in his native West Virginia. In 2018, a Huntington, Virginia, medical center was renamed in his honor, and the Navy commissioned a mobile base sea vessel in his name in 2020.

The state’s two senators took the Senate floor Wednesday to remember him.

Democrat Joe Manchin called him the “greatest of the greatest generation.” Republican Shelley Moore Capito recalled his humility, saying that when Truman presented him with the Medal of Honor, Williams remembered asking himself why he was selected for the nation’s highest military honor when Marines right beside him did not make it home.

“That shows you the kind of man that Woody Williams was, always putting his country and his comrades first and never concerned with who got the credit,” Capito said.

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