Public Domain
The apparent deletion of personnel with 'Gay' in their names pushes the 'Trump administration is chaotic and incompetent' narrative, while the deletion of the black airmen helps push the racism claim.On January 29th, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released a memo stating that efforts to DEI were “incompatible with the values” of the Defense Department. This was based on an Executive Order from President Trump aimed at ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and referencing.
A key line from Hegseth’s memo is as follows:
“The DoD will strive to provide merit-based, color-blind, equal opportunities to Service members but will not guarantee or strive for equal outcomes.”
Hegseth is right, the armed forces must always recruit the toughest, brightest, and bravest, regardless of genetic attributes such as race. Circumventing merit will place the security of this nation in peril.
Recently, the Associated Press reported that the DoD’s purge of content promoting DEI has caused “tens of thousands of records to be flagged for deletion — many of which have nothing to do with DEI.”
The AP claimed that some targeted records of this purge operation “were a surprise, raising questions about the federal government’s new DEI standards and quality control.”
“One of the unexpected images flagged for removal is of a prominent WWII aircraft called the Enola Gay, presumably because of the name “Gay.”
Enola Gay was the B-29 bomber that was used to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. The aircraft was named after the mother of pilot Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr.
Upon searching for ‘Enola, ‘ most links of photos such as this, this, this, and this work, only one link such as this fails to load an image.
The AP claims that other imagery of service members with the last name Gay was deleted.
A photo of Lt. J.G. Justin Gay proposing to his girlfriend is still available. However, the link for Sergeant Major Adrian C. Gay yielded an ‘image not found’ result.
The AP also claims that photos of the Tuskegee Airmen, the nation’s first black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit, were removed. The AP claims some images were restored after the White House objected. Most links upon a random search for “Tuskegee” such as this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this didn’t yield images.
Reacting to the news, Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot said, “We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms.”
The AP claimed that Ullyot also said, “In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly.”
As expected, AP’s article spread across the news media like wildfire.
So what does one make of all of this?
Some possibilities can be explored. It’s unlikely that the AP fabricated the claim because they have provided URLs. The fact that they quote Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot also eliminates the possibility of a total concoction. It seems unlikely they would try to fabricate URLs, although it is achievable. Let’s take the URL https://www.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2000077082/ that yields an ‘image not found’ where ‘2000077082’ can be replaced with another number, which will cause an ‘image not found’ result.
<img alt captext="Public Domain” class=”post-image-right” src=”https://conservativenewsbriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/deep-state-sabotage-in-the-dod.jpg” width=”450″>There is also a possibility that the URLs are related to old versions of current websites that have been decommissioned and have nothing to do with the DEI purge.
The Trump administration must release a clarification and sue the AP if they have fabricated the story.
If the AP’s story is factual, there are a few possibilities.
Perhaps an ignoramus was assigned the delete operation; this individual just searched and deleted links to images tagged with keywords such as ‘Gay.’ If this is the case, a proper review mechanism must be immediately instituted.
A review mechanism may exist; perhaps the reviewer was also an ignoramus. If this is the case, those who managed the purge operation should be questioned for not assigning the appropriate personnel for such an important public-facing task.
The most likely and unfortunate possibility is that this is the work of a saboteur who is a deep-state loyalist. Perhaps the saboteur ran the delete operation and purposefully deleted some images of the Enola Gay aircraft, personnel with surname “Gay,” “Tuskegee Airmen,” etc., knowing that it would incur ridicule and wrath towards the Trump administration.
Perhaps this saboteur let the AP know in advance and even provided the URLs of the photos about to be deleted. The exact words about the information of the URLs is the AP “obtained a database of tens of thousands of Department of Defense website images that have been flagged for removal, or already removed due to having content that highlighted diversity, equity or inclusion.” This suggests that the information wasn’t provided officially. It’s also unlikely that the AP would know of the URLs before the deletion of the images.
This deletion of personnel with ‘Gay’ in their names pushes the ‘Trump administration is chaotic and incompetent’ narrative, while the deletion of the black airmen helps push the racism claim.
Such news also has other impacts. It could cause supporters to wonder if similar recklessness and overzealousness exist for the DOGE-driven operations.
Elon Musk has admitted to accidentally stopping and immediately restoring funding of Ebola prevention-related efforts.
There are also stories of personnel from agencies such as the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration being sacked and immediately rehired.
Back to the image deletion.
To be fair, Hegseth was confirmed on January 24th, 2025, which means he has had little time to purge all saboteurs. But there is no excuse for not understanding the impact of the image deletion operation and not assigning the entire operation to a historian of repute who is pro-Trump. There is also no excuse for rushing in and getting it wrong. Nobody would have objected if this delete operation had been performed a month later, since no essential service was impacted due to the images.
The Democrat mouthpiece the Daily Beast claimed that “Pete Hegseth banned images of ‘Enola Gay’ plane in DEI crackdown,” which is a malicious lie.
But since Hegseth is in charge, the buck stops with him. The operation to purge all saboteurs must be given the highest priority.
It is essential that all key personnel in the Trump administration not operate in fear of attacks from the Democrats or their propagandists. This group cannot be won over. An ample demonstration of that was seen during Trump’s joint address to Congress.
But while they are operating fearlessly, they must exercise the utmost caution to avoid such embarrassing errors. The image deletion error can easily be fixed, the sacked employees could be rehired, and the cancelled operation can be reinstated.
The concern is that errors may occur in areas where the impact is catastrophic and cannot be undone.
The Democrats are waiting for such an instance so that they can create panic and perhaps bring a pause to all good work by instituting inquiries and probes.
It is therefore essential that the personnel who are focused on reducing government waste focus on getting it right rather than getting it done quickly, not because of how the Democrats will react, but rather for the best for the nation.
Image: Public Domain
