President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are shoving forward on their mission to whitewash and man-ify the U.S. military.
The department’s top public affairs official sent out a memo Wednesday instructing offices to comb through their websites and front-facing social media accounts for any hint of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
In the memo, obtained by the Associated Press, the departments are given a March 5 deadline. If they can’t oblige, then they must “temporarily remove from public display” all content published under former President Joe Biden’s administration.
“Given the intense focus on recent changes within the department, maintaining the public trust is more important than ever,” read the memo, which was signed by Darin Selnick, the temporary undersecretary for personnel.
Speaking to AP under the condition of anonymity, officials said they were given a matter of days to review and scrub online material “on gains in the military by women and minorities or stories celebrating cultural heritage,” the outlet wrote.
Due to the mounting pressure and lack of time, they were instructed at times to delete every single post from Biden’s term.
In addition to wiping websites, Trump and Hegseth have already let go of top military officials who they deemed as “woke.” Some of those officials include Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. In his past as a Fox News host, Hegseth once questioned if Brown got his job only because he is Black.
"Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill?” Hegseth wrote in his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free."
President Donald Trump
“We'll never know, but always doubt—which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn't really much matter,” he added.
In another move to whitewash the military, Hegseth announced it would no longer use federal resources to celebrate things such as Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Pride Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, National American Indian Heritage Month, and National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
“We are proud of our warriors and their history, but we will focus on the character of their service instead of their immutable characteristics,” the guidance says.
In addition to the military’s attack on diversity and any form of identity, the Pentagon is moving to push out current and future transgender military people within 30 days.
According to the policy memo, obtained by Axios, the Pentagon will consider granting waivers on a “case-by-case basis” but only if there is "a compelling government interest in retaining the service member that directly supports warfighting capabilities.”
The move is in response to a new lawsuit filed on behalf of six transgender military members who have together served for decades.
One member, Sergeant First Class Kate Cole, has served for nearly 17 years and has been awarded five Army Commendation Medals. She has also been placed in the top 10% of all Armor Branch Sergeants First Class in the Army’s Order of Merit List.
However, under Trump’s executive order, she is deemed unfit to serve.
Other lawsuits have hit Trump’s desk since the convicted felon sought to ban transgender people from the military.
Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign immediately geared up for (legal) war when Trump’s executive order was signed.
In a statement to Daily Kos, Sasha Buchert, Lambda Legal’s director of the nonbinary and transgender rights project, explained why this move is so harmful to the transgender community and to the military as a whole.
“[The executive order] will harm readiness because it will remove servicemembers that the military has invested millions of dollars in training," she told Daily Kos. “Thousands of transgender troops are combat-tested, having been deployed to war zones and executed missions with distinction, many of whom are senior personnel with decades of experience. It will hurt unit cohesion because it will discriminate against otherwise qualified service members, sending the message that identity rather than merit is what is important and that some discrimination is acceptable."
As Trump and Hegseth demand that offices wipe the military’s diverse history from its online presence, one thing is certain: They can’t delete what outlets are reporting on them. And history will always remember that.
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