Editor, Gazette-Journal:
One hundred and thirty one years ago, 18 Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded to the 500-man 7th U.S. Cavalry for the action at Wounded Knee.
Wounded Knee was a massacre of 300 Lakota people by soldiers of the U.S. Army. It occurred on Dec. 29, 1890 near Wounded Knee Creek on today’s Latoka Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the state of South Dakota. In total, 300 Indians were killed and as many as 31 troopers.
Most of the citations on the medals awarded to the troopers state that “at risk to themselves they went in pursuit of Lakota who were trying to escape or hide.” One was for “conspicuous bravery in rounding up and bringing to the skirmish line a stampeded pack mule.”
“A woman with an infant in her arms who was killed as she almost touched the flag of truce … A mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its mother was dead was still nursing … Women as they were fleeing with their babies were killed together, shot right through … and after most all of them had been killed, a cry was made that all those who were not killed or wounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys … came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight, a number of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there.”
—Col. James William Forsyth, in immediate command of the 7th Cavalry, was censored by Gen. Nelson A. Miles, but later promoted through the ranks to Major General on his retirement in 1897.
Two hundred and 12 days ago, on Jan. 6, 2021, 500 people, citizens of the United States, trespassed into the U.S. Capitol (sometimes called “The People’s House.”). One had served two tours of duty in Iraq, decorated USAF veteran Ashli Babbitt.
Yesterday, President Biden never penurious, profligately awarded Congressional Gold Medals to all the police of the U.S. Capitol during the 2½ hour Jan. 6 incursion, also called an insurrection. “It wasn’t dissent. It wasn’t debate. It wasn’t democracy,” Biden said of the event in which armed and armored Capitol police faced citizens, who’d just come from a political rally, armed with a hockey stick, a flag pole, a can of bear spray, and their own sweaty unarmed bodies.
Mr. Biden, no Jeffersonian rebel, declared, “It was insurrection. It was riot and mayhem. It was radical and chaotic, and it was unconstitutional. Maybe most important, it was fundamentally un-American.” Jefferson’s statue, wherever it is, may now be only a shattered pile of granite rubble.
One of those untold CGMs must be as descriptive as 1890s MOH, “conspicuous bravery in rounding up and bringing to the skirmish line a stampeded pack mule.” Maybe, “fearing for his life, anonymous 6’ 250 lbs. Capitol officer, bravely shot to kill the insurgent Ashli Babbitt, 5’8” who willfully threw her 150 lbs. body against a door of the sacred Temple of American Democracy.”
Bill Husztek
Gloucester, Va.