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 … ...