A photo titled "The fighting 7th officers" shows the members of the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment at the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota, just two weeks after the Wounded Knee Massacre of December 29, 1890. The men who participated in the massacre were awarded Medals of Honor by the U.S. government. Image: U.S. Library of Congress

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Native Sun News Today: Museum honors men who slaughtered Lakota people

Friday, May 24, 2019

Honoring the Medal of Honor winners who killed innocent Lakota at Wounded Knee

By Native Sun News Today Staff

nativesunnews.today

RAPID CITY – A gentleman named John L. Jackson has plans to open a Medal of Honor museum at the Rushmore Mall. Most Americans would say, “Great, or it’s about time.”

But sadly, the museum will also honor the 20 men who received Medals of Honor for slaughtering nearly 300 Lakota wicasa (men), winyan (women), wakanyeja (children), tunkasilas (grandfathers or elderly men), and uncis (elderly women) on that dreadful day at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890.

“Irrespective of the political side, these men, despite what they did, acted heroically,” Jackson said as his reasoning for including the men all Lakota consider to be murderers.

Basil Brave Heart, a Lakota elder and Korean War Veteran, who is making an effort to have those medals rescinded said, “Would they have handed out Medals of Honor to the soldiers who slaughtered innocent men, women and children at Mai Lai in Vietnam?”

And Brave Heart is right; since when is killing helpless women and children heroic?

Callers to Native Sun News Today commented on Jackson’s total ignorance about how the Lakota feel about Wounded Knee is apparent. Many Lakota have relatives who died in the massacre and they commemorate their deaths every year.

Lakota riders follow the exact path taken by Chief Sitanka on his way to Pine Ridge in 1890. Ceremonies are held at the gravesite of the massacred Lakota every December 29.