The Trump administration has removed references to Native American war heroes from official government websites.
From 1942 to 1945, the Code Talkers were vital to every major operation of the Marine Corps in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War. The Code Talkers were First Nations soldiers who used codes based in their native languages to transmit messages - and the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, imperial Japan and fascist Italy) were never able to crack the codes.
The US Army had recognised the ability of tribal members to send coded language in World War I and realised the codes could not be easily interpreted in part because many Indigenous languages had never been written down. The Army expanded the use of Code Talkers in World War II, using members of 34 different tribes in the program.
First Nations Americans have long enlisted in the US military in higher proportions than any other demographic group. In World War II, more than one third of able-bodied Indigenous men between 19 and 50 enlisted. The participation of the Code Talkers was key to the invasion of Iwo Jima, for example, when they sent more than 800 messages without error.
"Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima," Major Howard Connor said.
Earlier this week, Erin Alberty of Axios reported that at least ten articles about the Code Talkers have disappeared from US military websites. The broken URLs are now labelled "DEI," an abbreviation for "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion".
Axios found web pages associated with the US Department of Defense have also put DEI labels on now-missing pages that honoured prominent Black veterans.
Similarly missing is information about women who served in the military, including the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II.
A profile of Army Major General Charles Rogers, who received the Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam, was similarly changed, but the Defense Department replaced the missing page and removed "dei" from the URL after a public outcry.
Local media outlets have also noted the Arlington National Cemetery website had deleted content about Black, female, and Hispanic veterans.
In late January the Department of Defense scrapped National Native American Heritage Month in the military
In guidance issued on January 31, Donald Trump's Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed celebrations of Native American Heritage Month run counter to the "warfighting mission" of the department.
Mr Hegseth concluded, with no evidence, that Native American Heritage Month - which has been observed in the US military for 35 years - would "erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution".
The Department, as well as the individual branches of the military, have long celebrated Native American Heritage Month. The first events took place after then-president George H.W. Bush, a Republican, signed into law a joint Congressional resolution designating November as National American Indian Heritage Month in 1990.
