“The actions at Wounded Knee were not acts of bravery and valor deserving of the Medal of Honor,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairwoman Janet Alkire said. “I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee,” he wrote the following year to a fellow officer. For Native Americans nationwide, even those not directly connected to the Lakota people caught up in the Wounded Knee killings, the massacre is a deeply traumatic historical event. The report was completed last October and, according to Hegseth, it found that the medals should not be rescinded. “This is one of America’s darkest days and the medals must be revoked,” Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Ryman LeBeau said.