A group of Senate Democrats will send a letter on Thursday, in which President Donald Trump and Defense Minister Pete Hegseth reverse the latest guidelines who “try to remove the historical achievements of our troops” in the middle of the removal of online materials by administration about women, minorities and LGBTQ+ service members and veterans.
The four legislators signed in the letter are sens. Tammy Duckworth from Illinois; Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut; And Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, both from Arizona – all veterans who are armed in the Senate's committees and are active. They quoted content on record-breaking aviators, Navajo code spokesman for the Second World War, medal recipient in separate combat units and “numerous other victims of war by soldiers, sailors, marines and planes”, which were removed during cleaning, according to the letter received by military.com.
At the end of the last month, Hegseth ordered the services, articles, photos and videos to scrub that promoted “diversity, equity and inclusion” within a week, which led to the removal of the multitude of content and a story about the baseball legend Jackie Robinson's army service, which was restored on Wednesday after public background.
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The senators found it “particularly unacceptable” that the Arlington National Cemetery scrubbed information about black, Hispanic and female troops from its “remarkable graves” website in accordance with the letter.
From Wednesday, it seemed that biographies were previously restored from the cemetery location, a frequent trend in the midst of cleaning, after agencies and military components had complied with the command, and were disapproved by the legislators, veteran groups and the public.
The result was a confusing and inconsistent landscape of inactive websites that are sometimes restored, while others remain inaccessible.
“We protest against the department that achieve the public records that achieve the extraordinary achievements of warriors and veterans from the letter,” the letter said. “We ask you to reverse these indiscriminately, comprehensive actions in order to delete the inheritance of our service members.”
Military.com previously reported that material is connected to the code speakers. Medal of honor recipients and women who served during the civil war, the Second World War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War were removed from various service or Pentagon websites last month.
Some materials such as a Pentagon story about Major General of the Army, General Charles Calvin Rogers, a recipient medal of honor, were restored from Wednesday, but others who related to women or American indigenous people who were published during the cultural month of consciousness were removed. The letters “dei” were added to some dead Urls.
The Associated Press reported on Thursday that some websites for the code spokesman and other veterans of the American indigenous people were restored, although they found that “all the American legacy of the American Native of the American was no longer reduced”, and thousands of other pages on different groups of service members and veterans are still inactive.
On Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, the Robinson, the Code spokesman, Tuskegee Airmen and Marines at IWO Jima, made an explanation that “in the rare cases that content is removed – either deliberately or through errors – this is from the clearly described target remote tube of the guideline, which is the components and their huts for their huts Humanams, for their humes, who have their huts for their humanams, for their human -humania, for their human houses, which their human houses, for their humes, for their humes, who cause their Humes -Human Humania.
“We do not see them through the prism of unchangeable characteristics such as breed, ethnicity or sex,” he added. “We only do this by acknowledge your patriotism and your commitment to the warfighting mission as always [sic] Other Americans who wore the uniform. “
The removal of such websites according to Pentagon instructions last month to end “refresh digital content”, according to an signed memo “, led the deletion of important American stories of heroism of current and earlier service members,” said the legislators.
They argued that “the removal of these records exacerbates an already worrying recruitment crisis, undermining morality through the common strength and the commitment of our nation reveals for the honor of the service of veterans”.
They added that “these short -sighted actions” would keep justified Americans from registering for the military because they “send a message that they are not welcomed in the armed forces”. They also claimed that cleaning creates a split in the ranks, and the opponents would try to use this discord.
“Finally, their administration claims to support warriors and veterans, but these unnecessary actions undermine a fundamental commitment to our heroes in uniform – that their victims are honored and remembered in the service of the Americans,” the letter said. “Public celebration of these military officers and committed service members who have made extraordinary contributions to the military and the American people is the least that we owe them and their family, friends and communities.”
On January 29, Trump granted an executive regulation that cited the military in order to get rid of programs, offices and initiatives in connection with what the administration calls the administration. In the following month, the services began to remove websites in order to highlight these programs or historical references to different groups, in some cases that they had to add later.
“We are encouraged by steps that the department has undertaken to restore some of these websites, including the page in which Charles C. Rogers emerges the recipient medal of the medal of honor, and the Air Force training website in connection with the Tuskegee -Airms,” said the letter and cited an early example for one of the services that are in rejections implemented. “However, we are still concerned that these efforts to correct the recording ad -hoc, reactive and insufficient.”
Trump's executive command followed a policy of Hegseth in January, in which government funds and recognition for cultural months of consciousness such as the black history and the month of women's history explained and explained these months of identity [are] dead at [the] Dod. “
The legislators demanded that Trump and Hegseth answered their letters with information on specific guidelines that have received the services for the archiving material until April 1, while applying for the Federal Regulation Act, a law according to which the government must maintain documents. How many men hours and the costs required to clean the material; And if the material was restored.
When asked whether Duckworth expects the administration to react at this time, and if not the other mechanisms the legislators have to reverse the guidelines described in their letter, a spokeswoman for the Senator said that she has already undertaken that the administrative management that they protest on the administration. First place. “
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