Tanks and aircraft extended violence far beyond the reach of an individual warrior.

This created a question that no Crow elder in the nineteenth century had needed to answer.

Could the traditional deeds of a war chief still exist in such a war?

The old requirements were specific.

National Park Service accounts list them as touching or striking the first enemy fallen, taking a weapon from an enemy, entering an enemy camp and stealing a horse, and successfully commanding a war party.

Other retellings phrase the details slightly differently, but the essential pattern remains: personal courage, direct encounter, successful leadership, and the taking of an enemy horse.

In an age of armored warfare, one requirement seemed especially unlikely.

Enemy horses.

Medicine Crow did not enter Europe with a checklist and spend the war hunting opportunities for ceremonial recognition.

Survival and military duty came first.