StarAdvertiser: War on DEI erodes America’s Identity:
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2025/03/20/editorial/our-view/editorial-war-on-dei-erodes-americas-identity/
Indecent revisionist history doesn’t occur only by rewriting or
misstating what actually happened; it can also occur via
deletion and erasure.
So it’s appalling, and chilling, that information-rich postings
about the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team vanished
from the U.S. Army’s website; it was partially restored days
later only after public outcry. This most-decorated WWII unit
helped turn the tide of war for U.S. and its allies, liberated
towns in France, and fought so fiercely against the Nazis to
prove their American patriotism that it suffered a 314%
casualty rate, with each soldier, on average, injured more than three times.
So the reason for the regiment’s downsized presence by its
own Army?
The 442nd was comprised of Americans of Japanese
ancestry (AJAs) — so it fell under the federal government’s
current, and clumsy, anti-DEl (diversity, equity, inclusion) purge.
It all stems from President Trump’s January executive orders
calling on the departments of Defense and Homeland
Security to remove DEl offices from the uniformed services
and to scrub away any diversity-related efforts. Very
unfortunately, during the Defense Department’s crude auto-
removal process, information about myriad breakthrough
achievements in U.S. military history have been
indiscriminately purged.
The 442nd, with two-thirds of its enlistees from Hawaii, was
just one casualty. Others include Air Force webpages on
pioneering female pilots being taken offline; the Air Force
Times identified at least a dozen deleted pages on the WWII-
era Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs).
Further, posts about Navajo Code Talkers have been
removed, with the Marine Corps deleting more than a dozen
website videos, photos and stories about the Native
Americans whose coded messages were integral to helping
the U.S. win WWll. In both world wars, in fact, the military
deployed units that used Indigenous American languages to
secretly transmit information in pivotal battles.
Such ingenuity, bravery and gainful diversity can only be
known over generations if contextual records are retained;
conversely, if such exploits are systematically erased from
official archives, they start to vanish.
Some Code Talkers posts remain up, but reducing the
breadth of their contributions — intriguing and risky spylike
exploits — from national archives is wrong. Similarly, it’s poor
to diminish the 442nd’s official military posting, which now
omits important context about the wartime internment of
100,000 Japanese Americans that spurred AJA soldiers into
battle to “prove” their loyalty to the U.S.
The Navajo Code Talkers’ online reduction is a particular
sting to Indigenous Americans, who have enlisted in the
military at a rate five times the national average. That
statistic, ironically, is from Trump’s own proclamation in 2018
— when, in his first term, he proclaimed November 2018 as
National Native American Heritage Month. Clearly, 2018 was
a kinder, gentler presidency and period.
It’s not mere appreciation of history that reveals the dark
side of the current DEI purge; the campaign has real-time
consequences within today’s Armed Forces. On Tuesday, for
instance, a federal court halted the government’s recent ban
and expulsion of transgender troops, calling it
unconstitutionally discriminatory. That battle continues.
And on Sunday, “60 Minutes” featured an example of
unintended consequences: a canceled May concert between
select high school musicians and U.S. Marine Band mentors.
The event had been coordinated by Equity Arc, which gives
talented students “of color” opportunities to play with the
pros and connect them with U.S. orchestras, which are 80%
white.
“We’re a land that prides itself on being the land of the free,
the home of the brave. I believe that just as much as anyone
else does,” said Rishab Jain, 18, one of the young musicians.
“But for that, we need these different perspectives. We need
to see how others think.”
So true. All Americans should want America to remain the
land of the free, home of the brave. But that entails a
fundamental understanding of who are Americans, and what
real bravery means. For that, look up the 442nd soldiers’
valor and sacrifices, on whatever websites that still honor
them.
For 442nd Regiment content now deleted from the Army
website, see 808ne.ws/442archive
