Medal of Honor for Sioux Warrior

Posthumous award first for Sioux
By Peter Fearon,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 4, 2008 6:32 AM CST
Medal of Honor for Sioux Warrior
A family member in the audience holds up a bird wing, at right, during ceremonies in the East Room of the White House where President Bush, presented the Medal of Honor posthumously to the family members of Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble of the United States Army. During the final allied offensive...   (Associated Press)

The first full-blooded Sioux to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor was awarded his medal 26 years after his death at a moving ceremony at the White House yesterday, reports CNN. President Bush presented the medal to family members of Army Master Sgt. Woodrow "Woody" Keeble, whose courage in World War II and Korea already earned him two Purple Hearts and a Silver and Bronze Star.

"The Sioux have a saying: 'The life of a man is a circle,'" said the president. "Today, we complete Woody's circle from an example to his men to an example for the ages." Bush said the honor should have been presented decades earlier, but that the award was held up by bureaucratic errors and missed deadlines. (More Medal of Honor stories.)

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