Wednesday, Apr 02nd
Last update06:42:28 AM GMT
Military Glance
The U.S. Naval Academy has removed nearly 400 books that promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from its library.
A spokesperson for the Navy confirmed to The Hill that the Academy removed the nearly 400 books from the Nimitz Library collection “in order to ensure compliance with all directives outlined in Executive Orders issued by the President.
The library, according to the spokesperson, has roughly 590,000 print books, 322 databases and over 5,000 print journals and magazines.
Lithuania's president said Friday that he hoped for "a miracle" as he visited the site of a rescue operation to recover four missing U.S. Army soldiers from their submerged vehicle. The four soldiers, assigned to the Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, went missing early Tuesday morning during a maintenance mission to recover another U.S. Army vehicle in the Pabrade training area, near Lithuania's border with Belarus, during a scheduled training missing, the Army has said.
Search and rescue teams were at the scene on Friday using heavy military equipment and excavators to remove silt from the body of water where the vehicle was found on Wednesday.
"I am still hoping for a miracle," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told reporters in Pabrade. "Although many sceptics would probably say that there is nothing to hope for in these circumstances, I want to believe."
“The first feelings I had really were just, concerned for my fellow transgender service members, concerned for their families, concerned for the service members that service under them,” she said.
Morgan has spent 14 years moving up the ranks in the U.S. Navy. Long-serving trans service members, like Morgan, are now plaintiffs in legal challenges against Trump’s ban. To the trans troops suing the government — among them, an Air Force staff sergeant with 16 years of service, a Navy commander with 19, an Army sergeant first class with 20 — the ban is poised not only to harm them, but also drain experience and expertise from the military.
The Department of Defense restored a story on its website highlighting Jackie Robinson's military service Wednesday after deleting it as part of President Donald Trump's efforts to purge references to diversity, equity and inclusion through a "digital content refresh."
While it does not make any references to DEI, the story on Robinson was among a swath scrubbed from government websites in recent days. Before the story on Robinson's service was restored, the URL had redirected to one that added the letters "dei" in front of "sports-heroes."
In a statement sent by the Pentagon at 1:24 p.m. ET Wednesday, press secretary John Ullyot cited Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in saying "DEI is dead at the Defense Department" and said the Department of Defense was "pleased by the rapid compliance" that led to the erasing of stories on Robinson, Navajo Code Talkers and Ira Hayes, one of six Marines who raised the American flag at Iwo Jima.
The Republican chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services committees issued a joint statement on Wednesday criticizing the idea of the U.S. drastically changing its military combatant command structure, saying they “will not accept” those changes without coordination with Congress and other agencies.
The statement marks one of the first major instances of Republican lawmakers pushing back on President Trump in his second term.
House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) responded to an NBC News article published Tuesday that said the Pentagon is considering giving up its role as NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, or SACEUR as part of restructuring of commands and headquarters.“U.S. combatant commands are the tip of the American warfighting spear. Therefore, we are very concerned about reports that claim [the Defense Department] is considering unilateral changes on major strategic issues, including significant reductions to U.S. forces stationed abroad, absent coordination with the White House and Congress,” the two chairs said.
A federal judge halted the Trump administration’s ban on transgender troops in the U.S. military Tuesday evening.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes ruled that the ban violated the constitutional rights of transgender members of the military. It will almost certainly provoke a swift appeal from the Department of Justice.
The decision originates from a civil lawsuit first brought against the Trump administration in January by a group of trans military service members, many of whom are decorated. They say President Donald Trump’s ban violated their rights and was inherently discriminatory.
The US defense department webpage celebrating a Black Medal of Honor recipient that was removed and had the letters “DEI” added to the site’s address has been restored – and the letters scrubbed – after an outcry. But defense department officials have continued to argue publicly that it is wrong to say that diversity is a strength, and that it’s essential to dismantle all “diversity, equity and inclusion” efforts.
On Saturday, the Guardian reported that US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor webpage led to a “404” error message – and that the URL had been changed, with the word “medal” changed to “deimedal”.
Rogers, who died in 1990, served in the Vietnam war, where he was wounded three times while leading the defense of a base. Then president Richard Nixon awarded him the Medal of Honor, the country’s highest military honor, in 1970, making him the highest-ranking African American to receive it, according to the West Virginia military hall of fame.
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