The Defense Department removed articles about Navajo Code Talkers from its websites amid an ongoing campaign to rid the military of diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Many links that previously took viewers to informational articles about the Native American service members who used their native language as an indecipherable code to help win World War I and II were no longer accessible as of Tuesday afternoon. A Pentagon spokesperson said the department was working to rectify the situation.
“The department is restoring content about the Navajo Code Talkers,” the spokesperson said. “It had previously been removed during the auto-removal process.”
A quick search on the Army website with the keyword “Navajo Code Talkers” on Tuesday produced several pages of results. But many articles that mention the Native American service members, once clicked, took viewers to pages that read, “Internal Server Error.” Of 45 links that populated when searching the site for articles about Navajo Code Talkers, 20 had been removed, including one article titled “Honoring Native American contributions in U.S. military history.”
The removals came as the military was purging its sites of images and webpages that were deemed DEI content. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office calling for the end of “radical and wasteful” DEI programs.
When questioned Monday about the removals of some pages honoring contributions to the military by women and minority groups, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell defended the decisions.
“I think the president and the secretary have been very clear on this — that anybody that says in the Department of Defense that diversity is our strength is, is frankly, incorrect,” Parnell said.
It’s unclear when exactly some of the pages about Navajo Code Talkers were taken down. According to the Internet Archive, several of the pages had been available as of November, and at least two articles that were removed were still on the website just days ago. One article, “Airman honors Grandfather’s WWII Code Talker legacy,” included the term “DEI” in its broken link early Tuesday. By the end of the day, the page had been restored.
Another article, “Code Talkers Helped U.S. Win World Wars I and II,” still included the term “DEI” in its broken link late Tuesday. Other articles — like ones entitled “Navajo Soldier inspired to serve by ‘code talker’ grandfather” and “Code Talkers – heroes of both World Wars” — were never taken down.
A search on the U.S. Marine Corps website produced more articles about Navajo Code Talkers, and — like with the Army site — some articles had been removed, while others were left active. An article titled, “Last of original Navajo Code Talkers passes away,” and a video, “Navajo Code Talkers day,” were among those that remained online. An audio interview with Navajo Code Talker Bill Toledo, however, appeared Tuesday to have been taken down.
Similarly, some articles on the Defense Department website related to Navajo Code Talkers were left up, and some were removed.
The Pentagon did not respond to questions from Military Times about what the auto-removal process entailed and why some of the articles remained active while others were taken offline. These discrepancies came as the Pentagon worked to restore other pages that were taken down as part of the DEI removal initiative.
Military Times initially emailed the Defense Department asking about what prompted the removal of Navajo Code Talker articles, as well as what prompted the removal of an article about Medal of Honor recipient Army Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers, who is the highest-ranking Black recipient of the award. The Rogers article’s broken URL included the text “deimedal-of-honor.” The link has since been restored, and the URL no longer includes “DEI.”
The Defense Department replied that both were removed during the auto-removal process. When Military Times sent a follow up email asking whether the articles were removed accidentally, a spokesperson clarified, “They were removed by mistake.”
A separate spokesperson who answered the Defense Department Press Operations number said the Pentagon realized certain information was taken offline and was working to restore it, though the person said they would not characterize the removals as a “mistake.” The spokesperson would not offer more details.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Riley Ceder is a reporter at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice, investigations, and cyber. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the Abused by the Badge investigation.
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