‘A Draft Dodging Coward Tries to Erase a Real Hero’: Black Medal of Honor Award Winner, Tuskegee Airmen Removed from Defense Department Website as Part of Trump’s DEI Purge
DEI has come to mean many things to many people, though it’s no longer just an acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion. For the Trump administration, it’s become a dog whistle used to denigrate the achievements of anyone who is not a white male.
How else to explain the Department of Defense’s decision to remove a page on its website commemorating the service of the late Major General Charles C. Rogers, who was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Richard Nixon after he defended a U.S. base in Vietnam despite being wounded three times?
Rogers, according to the West Virginia Military Hall of Fame, was the highest-ranking Black soldier to be honored with the country’s most prestigious medal. Now, if you visit the Department of Defense page that once detailed Rogers’ accomplishments, you receive a “404” error message. In addition, the new URL features the word “deimedal” in place of “medal,” as if to imply Rogers was recognized only because of his race.
It would be akin to kicking Henry Aaron and Willie Mays out of the Baseball Hall of Fame, stripping Simone Biles of her Olympic gold medals, or Denzel Washington of his Oscars.
Similar but not as galling, considering Rogers put his life on the line for his country.
Writer Brandon Friedman posted a screenshot on Bluesky Saturday night that showed the Google preview of Rogers’ DOD website profile before it was deleted.
It reads, “Army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers served through all of it. As a Black man, he worked for gender and race equality while in the service.”
You can guess which part of that triggered the diversity-phobic administration.
What makes the situation even more maddening to many is that the decision comes at the behest of a president who never served in the military and sought a deferment from the draft for bad feet (thus earning the nickname “Col. Bone Spurs” from the late U.S. senator John McCain, another military hero Donald Trump disparaged).
“When a f***ing draft dodging coward tries to erase a real hero. Because he’s black,” posted one combat veteran on X.
“Spitting on the graves of honored U.S. war heroes while prostrating before Putin, a blood-soaked butcher, a documented war criminal who loathes everything the West stands for. This isn’t just disgrace, it’s a betrayal carved into history,” added a commenter.
Such historical smears have become commonplace under the DEI purge supervised by Secretary of State Pete Hegseth, a former “Fox and Friends” host. More than 26,000 images were removed from the department’s website because they were considered pro-DEI.
They include the Tuskegee Airmen, a segregated unit of primarily Black fighter pilots who served valiantly in World War II.
The achievements of women have also been stricken from the record. You’ll no longer find images of U.S. Air Force Col. Jeannie Leavitt, the country’s first female fighter pilot, on the DOD website.
The absurdity even extends to machinery. At least six photos of the “Enola Gay,” the aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, were flagged for removal. According to the AP, the bomber was included in a broad search for files that included the word “gay,” as the DOD has also excised any LGBT-positive material. The Enola Gay was named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot who flew the aircraft.
Fortunately, the DOD is not the sole chronicler of military heroes and their achievements.
From the West Virginia Military Hall of Fame:
“Rogers earned the Medal of Honor for actions that took place near the Cambodian border on November 1, 1968. While manning a fire support base, members of the 1st Battalion, 5th Artillery, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Rogers, found themselves in a desperate struggle. Enemy forces launched an attack that penetrated the base perimeter. Wounded three times over the next two days, Rogers directed artillery fire and led counterattacks until the enemy force was repelled.”
Rogers retired from the military as a major general in 1984, but his lifetime of service wasn’t complete. The ordained Baptist minister spent his final years ministering to American soldiers in Germany. He’s buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and in 1999, a bridge in Fayette County, West Virginia, was rechristened the Charles C. Rogers Bridge.
As one X user put it, “Thank you for your service General Rogers. What a disgraceful, sad day this is in America. Shameful of Trump.”