Update on the Erasure of History at Arlington National Cemetery: It's Much Worse Than I Thought
Last week I reported on the order to delete lesson plans/modules on the website of Arlington National Cemetery that covers various aspects of the cemetery’s history. As I noted in that post, the decision to delete these web pages compromised the ability of teachers across the country from sharing the history of the cemetery with their students.
US Army Deletes Lesson Plans Focusing on African American History, the Civil War and Women's History at Arlington National Cemetery
There is no better place to learn about the rich and diverse history of the United States than Arlington National Cemetery. Stepping on the grounds of Arlington offers a powerful reminder of the service and sacrifice of Americans from all walks of life, who answered this nation’s call and often paid the ultimat…
Eventually, I was contacted by Matt White, who writes for the online news source, Task & Purpose, which focuses on the different branches of the US military. I shared what I had discovered and why I consider this to be such a serious issue. Matt decided to do some additional investigation. His findings have now been published.
It’s so much worse than I had initially thought.
[T]he cemetery’s public website has scrubbed dozens of pages on gravesites and educational materials that include histories of prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members buried in the cemetery, along with educational material on dozens of Medal of Honor recipients and maps of prominent gravesites of Marine Corps veterans and other services.
Cemetery officials confirmed to Task & Purpose that the pages were ‘unpublished’ to meet recent orders by President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth targeting race and gender-related language and policies in the military.
Here is a screenshot provided by Task & Purpose that shows lesson plans/modules by theme that have been deleted.
Here is a list of the deleted modules:
“Civil War” (archived version) – 7 educational modules removed.
“Environment at ANC” (archived version) – page renamed and 1 educational module removed.
“Medal of Honor” (archived version) – 1 module removed with three walking tour guides.
“Service Branches” (archived version) – 5 walking tour modules for notables graves of veterans of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.
“Women’s History” (archived version) – 7 educational modules removed.
“African-American History” (archived version) – 14 educational modules removed.
It should be noted that some of the pages that have gone missing have been walled off or disconnected from their home pages, which is as good as being deleted. Arlington officials indicated that the lesson plans would eventually be republished once updated, but no time frame was given.
The most troubling deletion has to be the pages that fall under ‘Medal of Honor,’ which “included three self-guided walking tours for the graves of Medal of Honor recipients. Each tour covers about 10 Medal of Honor recipients with directions to their graves and biographical fact-sheets.”
Here is a before and after screenshot from T&P.
This just scratches the surface of Matt’s report, which I urge you to read in its entirety.
It didn’t think it would be possible to get any more upset over this shameful erasure of our history at one of our most sacred sites.
There is no place quite like Arlington National Cemetery. Each time I step foot on the grounds, I am immediately overcome by a wave of emotions. I am overcome by the history as well as the service and sacrifice represented by the rows upon rows of grave markers. Like other visitors, I feel a strong connection to this country and to my fellow Americans.
In short, my visits serve as a reminder of my responsibilities as a citizen of the United States.
It is one of the great joys of my career that I have had the opportunity to share this history with teachers from around the country and I take that responsibility very seriously.
We cannot treat this erasure of history at Arlington and elsewhere throughout the federal government as just another example of the politicization of history. The Trumps administration is engaged in a war on history—one born of fear and a deep hatred of anything that doesn’t conform to a white-centric narrative.
Like it or not, the complete history of Arlington National Cemetery and that of the military is a story of “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusiveness.” It is embedded in the very landscape of Arlington.
We have a responsibility to the men and women buried at Arlington and elsewhere, who paid the ultimate sacrifice, to honor them by facing and acknowledging the history that they helped to shape in all of its complexity and regardless of how it makes us feel.
thank you so much for diving into all of this. i wrote about how important and how ancient identity is... https://open.substack.com/pub/robbydarling/p/intersectionality?r=12wdb2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
It makes me heartsick. I was last at Arlington at the end of October for my aunt and uncle’s interment. Then visited my parents’ grave, my grandparents’ grave, my great aunt’s grave, etc. I come from a family proud of service to our nation. I feel like they have been scorned and dishonored.
I can’t seem to find words