DEI purge.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...e-american-iwo-jima/

Amid ‘DEI’ purge, Pentagon removes webpage on Iwo Jima flag-raiser
Pages celebrating Navajo code talkers and other minority service members were also erased.

Updated
March 17, 2025 at 8:23 p.m. EDTyesterday at 8:23 p.m. EDT

U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raise the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on Feb. 23, 1945. Strategically located only 660 miles from Tokyo, the Pacific island became the site of one of the bloodiest, most famous battles of World War II against Japan. (Joe Rosenthal/AP)
By Jon Swaine and Alex Horton

Until recently, a page on the Defense Department’s website celebrated Pfc. Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the six Marines photographed hoisting a U.S. flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, as an emblem of the “contributions and sacrifices Native Americans have made to the United States, not just in the military, but in all walks of life.”

But the page, along with many others about Native American and other minority service members, has now been erased amid the Trump administration’s wide-ranging crackdown on what it says are “diversity, equity and inclusion” efforts in the federal government, a review by The Washington Post found.

Multiple articles about the Navajo code talkers, who were critical to America’s victory at Iwo Jima and the wider Pacific theater of the Second World War, were also removed, along with a profile of a Tonawanda Seneca officer who drafted the terms of the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox toward the end of the Civil War.

The purge, which also targeted multiple webpages about women and LGBTQ+ service members, highlights how aggressively military leaders are pursuing President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI mandate. Their actions mean that some of the most authoritative sources of public information about the achievements of minority service members decades before government DEI programs existed have disappeared. Some of the articles, including the piece about Hayes, remain online on websites or social media accounts for the individual branches of the military.

Ira Hayes at Marine Corps parachute school in Camp Gillespie, California, sometime in 1942. (Defense Department)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has vigorously supported an executive order that Trump issued on his first day in office banning DEI from federal government programs and contracts, which he claimed were “immoral” and wasteful. In a memo last month, a senior Hegseth aide announced a “digital content refresh,” requiring officials to take “all practicable steps” to remove articles and other media that “promote Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” from the department’s website and social media accounts.


In response to questions about The Post’s findings, Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot issued a statement that did not mention the removal of specific websites but praised the department’s “rapid compliance” with the directive.

“As Secretary Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. Efforts to divide the force — to put one group ahead of another through DEI programs — erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution,” Ullyot said in the statement Monday. He added: “In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly.”

Last week, the website Task & Purpose, which covers military news, reported that Arlington National Cemetery had removed links on its website to information about prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members, along with material on topics such as the Civil War. A Defense Department webpage about Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers, a Medal of Honor recipient who was Black, was also briefly removed, before later being restored. Axios first reported the removal of more pages, including those about code talkers, earlier Monday.

The removal of the article about Hayes is particularly notable because of the legendary status of the Iwo Jima flag-raising photograph, which the Pentagon has labeled an “iconic image.” The photograph, which was taken on Feb. 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press, won a Pulitzer Prize and was the model for a statue that serves as the centerpiece of the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.

The Pentagon quickly capitalized on the image’s popularity, sending Hayes and other Marines who appeared in it on a national tour to sell war bonds. Hayes, who was depicted in three major movies and was the subject of a song recorded by Johnny Cash, died at age 32 in 1955 after struggling with alcoholism.

During a 1993 speech at the Marine Corps War Memorial, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Carl E. Mundy Jr. paid tribute to Hayes and noted his Native American heritage, according to a report from the time. Mundy said that were Hayes still alive, Mundy would have told him that the Marine Corps was made up of people from “the broad, strong ethnic fabric that is our nation,” and pledged that in the future “that fabric will broaden and strengthen in every category to make our corps even stronger.”

The Post found full archived versions of many of the removed pages using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. The archives confirm that several of the pages, including the article on Hayes, were active even after Trump’s inauguration. Others were still active in the months before Trump entered office, but it was not possible to determine precisely when they were removed.

The rewriting of history is a big step on the road towards total autocracy.

https://youtu.be/oEwSwQtSmDQ?si=Tb5YcvRjkxws8vKg

History is rewritten so often that one cannot know what to believe. The truth is the contribution of Ira Hayes would have been as significant regardless of his race or social background. His background is an aspect of the story, however. It is not the whole story. Regards, Bill

quote:

Hayes, who was depicted in three major movies and was the subject of a song recorded by Johnny Cash

Somewhat misleading; though Cash did record the song, it was a cover of the original, written by Peter La Farge, a Native American folksinger and songwriter. I hate it when some article credits a copy instead of the original.

My favorite version is Bob Dylan's, though I've never heard the original.

Ya'll just don't understand history, in the entire history of the United States nothing of significance was ever done by anybody who wasn't a straight, white man.

It's OK. Show us who you are, and we will decide what comes after...