Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has directed the Defense Department to review the Medals of Honor awarded to approximately 20 soldiers for their actions during the December 1890 engagement at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, to ensure no awardees were recognized for conduct inconsistent with the nation's highest military honor.
"It's never too late to do what's right," a senior defense official said in an interview this week. "And that's what is intended by the review that the secretary directed, which is to ensure that we go back and review each of these medals in a rigorous and individualized manner to understand the actions of the individual
in the context of the overall engagement."
