The Department of Defense confirmed to KOB 4 they are restoring content about the Navajo Code Talkers on U.S. military websites.

The Defense Department stated the content “had previously been removed during the auto removal process.” The Defense Department’s Naval History and Heritage Command page on the Navajo Code Talkers stated “content has been revised or removed to align with the President’s executive orders and DoD priorities.”

President Donald Trump signed executive orders to terminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies across all federally funded agencies. This prompted actions, like the reported removal of content about the Navajo Code Talkers.

The removal prompted backlash from the Navajo Nation Council. The council expressed “strong disappointment” in the decision.

“The Navajo Code Talkers earned their place in history through their courage and sacrifice, giving their lives in defense of this nation,” Speaker Crystalyne Curley said. “Erasing their extraordinary contributions from formal military history is not only disrespectful, it is dishonorable.”

Curley emphasized the Navajo Nation is “not a racial group but a distinct political entity. The council stated they have a relationship with the U.S. government based “in treaties and federal trust responsibilities, not in racial categorization.”

“The Navajo Nation Council is deeply concerned by being conflated into DEI initiatives that fail to recognize our unique political status,” Curley said.

The council stated in a news release that they are in contact with the Trump administration on this.

The Marines recruited Navajo speakers for service in the Pacific Ocean against Japan in World War II because they saw the language as unwritten and complex and therefore indecipherable to Japanese intelligence.

The Navajo Code Talkers took part in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. While Japanese intelligence officials deciphered the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps’ codes, they never cracked the Marines’ code.

Statement from Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot on the removal:

“As Secretary Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. Discriminatory Equity Ideology is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our military. It Divides the force, Erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the services’ core warfighting mission. We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms. In the rare cases that content is removed — either deliberately or by mistake — that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct the components and they correct the content accordingly.”