Medicine Crow was a World War II veteran, serving as a scout in the 103rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army.

[2] As the Crow kinship system was matrilineal, he was considered born for his mother's people, and gained his social status from that line.

[citation needed] His maternal step-grandfather, White Man Runs Him, was a scout for U.S. General George Armstrong Custer and an eyewitness to the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

When he was young, Medicine Crow heard direct oral testimony about the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 from his step-grandfather, White Man Runs Him, who had been a scout for General George Armstrong Custer.

[4] Beginning in 1929, when he was in eighth grade, Medicine Crow attended Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma, which also had preparatory classes for students of high school age.

[4] Medicine Crow taught at Chemawa Indian School for a year in 1941, then took a defense industry job in the shipyards of Bremerton, Washington in 1942.

[5] After spending the latter half of 1942 working in the naval ship yards in Bremerton, Washington, Medicine Crow joined the U.S. Army in 1943.

He also led a successful war party and stole fifty horses owned by the Waffen SS from a German camp, singing a traditional Crow honor song as he rode off.

"[12] Medicine Crow was a founding member of Little Bighorn College and of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming beginning in 1976.

Medicine Crow continued to write and lecture at universities and public institutions until his death, at the age of 102, on April 3, 2016.

[23] In 2018, the U.S. Congress passed a law to rename a Veteran Administration Clinic in Billings to honor Joe Medicine Crow.