The Marine Corps has removed more than a dozen videos, photos and stories about Navajo Code Talkers as part of an ongoing Trump administration purge of policies, programs and materials that highlight diverse groups of service members such as women and minorities.
The service's lead spokesperson told Military.com on Tuesday that the Marine Corps identified 16 posts about the historic World War II group that were tied to National Native American Heritage Month and removed them to adhere to President Donald Trump's executive orders and Pentagon policy. The service is keeping more than 540 pieces of content related to the Code Talkers on its sites.
Hundreds of Native American Code Talkers were instrumental to Allied victories during World War II by using their unique language to obfuscate communications to the enemy, often embarking on dangerous missions, including in the Pacific where Navajo Marines are routinely credited by historians for helping the Corps take Iwo Jima in a bloody amphibious assault.
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Dr. Zonnie Gorman, a historian and daughter of the late Dr. Carl Gorman, one of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers, said when she first heard that the military was removing references to the group's legacy, specifically in the aftermath of an Axios report, it "angered me, it upset me, it saddened me. I mean there were so many different types of emotions that I was feeling, and I'm still really feeling."
"The Code Talkers' story is history and to me what's happening -- not just with the Navajo Code Talkers but overall with this DEI thing -- is that it's an attempt to erase history," she said in a phone interview with Military.com on Tuesday. "It really upsets me as a historian to see this happening in our day. You wouldn't think that it would be happening. It's unbelievable."
The spokesperson, Lt. Col. Joshua Benson, said that heritage month posts about the Montford Point Marines -- the first Black service members to join the Corps during the onset of World War II who faced racial discrimination at the segregating training camp known as Montford Point in North Carolina -- were also removed. He did not provide the number of posts that were removed or how many remain.
The move is the latest in a growing list of censored materials celebrating the military contributions of women and service members with minority backgrounds. The Pentagon has ordered the military to scrub its vast collection of online media -- following a purge of programs and policies -- and flagged items included a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay, and the first woman to pass Marine infantry training, according to The Associated Press.
On. Jan. 29, Trump issued an executive order directing the military to abolish what his administration refers to as "diversity, equity and inclusion" initiatives. However, the definition of that term remains unclear, and many of the services have rushed to eliminate programs, policies and content related to women, troops with minority backgrounds, and LGBTQ+ service members.
In some cases, such as the Air Force's removal of information related to the Tuskegee Airmen -- a historic group of Black airmen, there has been widespread public outcry and the military has backtracked.
"The USMC maintains its long-standing relationship with Montford Point Marines and Navajo Code Talkers," Benson said in an emailed statement Tuesday. "The warfighting legacy of our Corps includes Montford Point Marines and Navajo Code Talkers -- that's an indisputable fact, and per SECDEF's guidance, we will continue to celebrate the valor and success of these military heroes.
"We will not shy away from creating content that supports our Montford Point Marines and Navajo Code Talkers, it just will not be associated with a cultural awareness month," Benson added.
Late last month, the Department of Defense gave the service less than a week to remove all content related to "diversity, equity and inclusion" from its sites, including posts celebrating Black History Month, National Native American Heritage Month, Women's History Month and other cultural awareness months.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a memo in January titled "Identity Months Dead at DoD" notifying the military that it would no longer mark or celebrate those months.
On Monday, Axios reported that 10 articles mentioning the Code Talkers were scrubbed from Army and Pentagon websites and that the Defense Department's URLs related to these articles now included the letters "DEI," presumably for "diversity, equity and inclusion."
It was unclear which websites and how many were removed by the Army, and a spokesperson for the service declined to comment on the report to Military.com, referring the publication to the Department of Defense. One post from the Army that appears with a dead link was published in December 2011 and was titled "Classified code mission delayed recognition for Navajo Marines."
An archived version of that story shows it was published in relation to National Native American Heritage Month, which occurs in November. The Marine Corps declined to comment on the Army's reported scrubbing of Marine Navajo Code Talkers from its sites.
"I can't speak to how the other services did their work," Benson said, referring to the content review and adding that the Marine Corps "did a surgical strike" on more than 10,000 items in its assessment "to verify we weren't erroneously deleting items."
"Only a handful of items were removed and only when they were attributed to 'cultural awareness months,'" he added. "The same photo removed due to the 'cultural awareness month' connection is still accessible in its original posting and historical context. It was not a blanket sweep and delete."
The guidance from the administration has resulted in various interpretations and outcomes from the services, and indeed, the Marine Corps has shuttered pages related to its Culture and Inclusion Branch at Quantico, Virginia, and a program that sought to recruit "historically underrepresented populations" into the reserves amid the purge, Military.com previously reported.
The Washington Post reported Monday that a page celebrating Pfc. Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the Marines pictured raising the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, was removed from the DoD's website. Other Pentagon pages celebrating women and a Medal of Honor recipient were also removed, Military.com found, and were labeled "DEI" in their URLs.
Benson said that 543 pieces of content on the Navajo Code Talkers remain live on its website, nearly 400 of which are news stories, photos and videos. The others were publications, orders and administrative messages. An administrative message published in 2022 that relates to National Native American Heritage Month remained up as of Tuesday.
One such piece of Marine Corps content that was removed, though it was unclear whether it included references to the Code Talkers, was published last year and titled "National American Indian Heritage Month on Okinawa." It featured a senior enlisted Marine interview about the heritage month. A National Native American Heritage Month video that depicts the history of the Code Talkers was also removed from the service's official website.
Posts related to Navajo Code Talkers Day, which occurs in August, were still available on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, or DVIDS, as of Tuesday. "Code Talker," a memoir written by Chester Nez and Judith Schiess Avila, remains on the commandant of the Marine Corps' professional reading list as well, according to the Marine Corps Association's website. A post honoring the Code Talkers and referencing National Native American Heritage Month from last year is still on the service's Facebook page.
Gorman, the historian and daughter of a Navajo Code Talker, explained that in World War II, the Marine Corps was looking for better means of communications to thwart Japanese and German operations. When the idea of using Navajo Code Talkers was presented to service leadership in February 1942, she said, the Marine Corps was "open to it," adding that it recruited a pilot group in which her father served.
She said that the Marine Corps gave them a list of roughly 200 terms to code within their language, in addition to creating a specialized alphabet. By August 1942, the service sanctioned the program and sought to recruit more Navajo men to join the effort, Gorman said, leading to hundreds of Code Talkers who served in major battles during the war.
"The Marine Corps has always, always had nothing but high praise for the Navajo Code Talkers in World War II," she said.
Gorman remembered growing up in the 1970s and witnessing Marine Corps recognition for the Code Talkers, adding that she saw high-ranking Marines, including commandants, "literally come to tears when they talked about the Navajo Code Talkers. It's just always been something they have respected and are proud to have as part of the Marine Corps history."
However, the services have not handled or communicated the removal of such content in uniform ways amid the ordered purge, and Gorman said she understood that the Marine Corps was in a difficult position of complying but still maintaining the heritage she said it is proud of.
"They're between a rock and hard place," Gorman said. "I commend them for standing strong. Yes, they did what they did, but I don't have any ill feelings toward the Marine Corps for taking down the few that they took down because they've left up a lot, and I think they're going to continue to do that."
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