References to a second world war Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan, and the first women to pass US marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion at the Pentagon.
The preparations come as the US defense department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) content, according to a database obtained by the Associated Press.
The database, which was confirmed by US officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for content deemed to be related to DEI, which the Trump administration has officially turned against. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had given the military until Wednesday to remove content that highlights diversity efforts in its ranks following Donald Trump’s executive order ending those programs across the federal government.
The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military. And it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months – such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women.
But a review of the database also underscores the confusion that has swirled among agencies about what to remove following Trump’s order.
In some cases, photos seemed to be flagged for removal simply because their file included the word gay, including service members with that last name and an image of the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay, which dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during the second world war.
Several photos of an Army Corps of Engineers dredging project in California were marked for deletion, apparently because a local engineer in the photo had the last name Gay. And a photo of Army Corps biologists was on the list, seemingly because it mentioned they were recording data about fish – including their weight, size, hatchery and gender.
In addition, some photos of the Tuskegee Airmen, the nation’s first Black military pilots who served in a segregated second world war unit, were listed on the database, but those may likely be protected due to historical content.
The air force briefly removed new recruit training courses that included videos of the Tuskegee Airmen soon after Trump’s order. That drew the White House’s ire over “malicious compliance”, and the air force quickly reversed the removal.
Many of the images listed in the database already have been removed. Others were still visible on Thursday, and it’s not clear if they will be taken down at some point or be allowed to stay, including images with historical significance such as those of the Tuskegee Airmen.
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Asked about the database, the Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot said in a statement: “We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms. In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly.”
He noted that Hegseth has declared that “DEI is dead” and that what the administration deems as efforts to put one group ahead of another through DEI programs erodes camaraderie and threatens mission execution.
In some cases, the removal was partial. The main page in a post titled “Women’s History Month: All-female crew supports warfighters” was removed. But at least one of the photos in that collection about an all-female C-17 crew could still be accessed. A shot from the Army Corps of Engineers titled “Engineering pioneer remembered during Black History Month” was deleted.
Other photos flagged in the database but still visible on Thursday included images of the Women Air Service Pilots in the second world war and air force Col Jeannie Leavitt, the country’s first female fighter pilot.
Also still visible was an image of then Pte First Class Christina Fuentes Montenegro becoming one of the first three women to graduate from the Marine Corps’ infantry training battalion and an image of Marine Corps second world war Medal of Honor recipient Pfc Harold Gonsalves.
The database of the 26,000 images was created to conform with federal archival laws.
