Pete Hegseth’s defense of allowing soldiers who participated in the Wounded Knee Massacre to retain their Medals of Honor represents a profound moral failing and a distortion of history. The 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee was not a battle but the slaughter of nearly 300 Lakota men, women, and children. To maintain that soldiers who carried out such an atrocity are worthy of America’s highest military honor undermines the integrity of the medal itself. Instead of symbolizing valor, courage, and sacrifice, the medal in this context becomes a grotesque reward for the indiscriminate killing of innocents.

By refusing to correct this historic injustice, Hegseth perpetuates the very culture of impunity that allowed the massacre to occur in the first place. A Medal of Honor is meant to inspire future generations of soldiers to embody the highest ideals of service; preserving these awards for the perpetrators of Wounded Knee instead taints the medal’s meaning. It dismisses the suffering of Native communities, trivializes the enormity of the massacre, and signals that political expediency outweighs truth and justice. In doing so, it erases accountability and locks the U.S. military into a legacy of denial rather than reconciliation.

Hegseth’s stance is akin to awarding medals to German officials who carried out Kristallnacht. Both events—one on the American plains, the other in Nazi Germany—were not acts of military bravery but orchestrated acts of terror against a vulnerable population. To reward participants in either case is to glorify brutality and excuse crimes against humanity. Just as no one would defend giving honors to those who smashed Jewish homes, synagogues, and businesses in 1938, it is indefensible to continue honoring those who turned Wounded Knee into a blood-soaked symbol of American injustice.

Can there be any debate at this point that Pete Hegseth is an ardent White Nationalist?