The National Congress of American Indians has strongly condemned a Pentagon review that decided against revoking medals awarded to US soldiers at the 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee, an event which many historians consider a massacre.

“Celebrating war crimes is not patriotic. This decision undermines truth-telling, reconciliation, and the healing that Indian Country and the United States still need,” Larry Wright Jr, the Congress’s executive director, said in a statement issued on Saturday.

US President Donald Trump’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth , said in a video posted on X late Thursday that a review panel had recommended allowing the soldiers to keep their medals, in a study completed last year, and that he followed that recommendation.

“We’re making it clear that they deserve t

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