Arlington National Cemetery stops highlighting some historical figures on its website : NPR

ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:

President Trump has ordered the United States military to launch strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. Trump says the Houthis are funded by Iran and have regularly fired missiles at U.S. troops and allies. NPR’s Tom Bowman is here. Tom, what do we know about these apparent strikes?

TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Well, Rob, I’m told by two U.S. officials not authorized to speak that this is an ongoing operation and more sustained than what we’ve seen in the past, both sea and air attacks against Houthi drone and radar sites. And I’m told these strikes will last days, if not weeks.

SCHMITZ: You know, I’m going to pivot here, Tom, because you’re also reporting on information about decorated Black soldiers, among others, that has been scrubbed from the Arlington National Cemetery’s website, apparently to comply with a Trump administration order. What’s missing here?

BOWMAN: Well, they took down internal links that you could go to and use to go to the webpages that listed dozens of notable graves of Black, Hispanic and female veterans and their spouses. Now, these pages included short biographies of people like General Colin Powell, the first chairman – Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hector Santa Anna, a World War II pilot who later took part in the Berlin Airlift, and also an all-Black, all-female postal unit from World War II. These changes were first noted by historian Kevin Levin on his Substack. It’s called Civil War Memory, and all this was confirmed to NPR by an army official.

SCHMITZ: And were all the history and stories behind these veterans removed as well?

BOWMAN: Well, no, not removed but just more difficult to find and, again, not prominently noted on the website. You can still find them through other links such as U.S. Supreme Court or prominent military officials, so not as obvious. Now, Pentagon officials have been directed by the President and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to get rid of all content at the Pentagon that relates to diversity, equity, inclusion programs.

SCHMITZ: So as we understand this, this is, like, easy access to the histories of veterans who fought in U.S. wars from diverse backgrounds, and that’s part of this.

BOWMAN: That’s right. And just one part of all this, at a Pentagon Town hall meeting last month, Hegseth criticized past celebrations of diversity, saying the term, diversity is our strength, is, quote, “the dumbest phrase in military history.” He put out a memo saying identity months are dead at DOD. He said the Pentagon would no longer host celebrations or events related to Black History Month, Women’s History Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month or National Disability Employment Awareness Month. He went on to…

SCHMITZ: Wow.

BOWMAN: …Say, Rob, that such events put one group ahead of another and erode camaraderie. And he said, unity and purpose are what’s important to the warfighting mission.

SCHMITZ: So Tom, what else has Secretary Hegseth done here?

BOWMAN: Well, Hegseth also instructed the Pentagon to remove any news and feature articles, photos, videos, that promote DEI, and the timeframe for that ran through all four years of the Biden administration. Now, this has all led to some confusion. I spoke with a Pentagon employee who’s involved with social media posting, and he and his colleagues wondered, you know, can we even mentioned Martin Luther King Day, since it’s a federal holiday?

SCHMITZ: Right.

BOWMAN: And he suggested, all of this could have an impact on recruiting, which the services, of course, have struggled with. You know, right now, the proportion of Black women recruits in the army is higher than their number in the civilian workforce. So what message does it send if you’re getting rid of these celebrations or not highlighting prominent people buried at Arlington like Colin Powell?

SCHMITZ: And this effort by the Pentagon has expanded across the military, right?

BOWMAN: Now, that’s correct. You know, West Point has banned clubs, such as the Korean American Relations Seminar. The Naval Academy has cut or restructured two political science courses that focused on gender. So – and I’m told professors there are nervous, scouring their writings for anything that might mention diversity, could get them in trouble.

SCHMITZ: That’s NPR’s Tom Bowman.

Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.