Among my youthful, unrequited dreams were becoming a professor of American history and playing centerfield for the New York Yankees. Obviously, neither came to pass. My passions for both the American story and the national pastime remain intact, however.

So imagine my utter disgust when I read that the Department of Defense took down the page devoted to one of a handful of history’s most remarkable of all Americans: Jackie Robinson. For this amateur historian, his breaking of the color barrier in Major League Baseball changed the nation forever and for better. The sport remembers Robinson every April 15 when all MLB players wear his number, 42.

The tribute underscores his undaunted courage in the face of daily vitriol from some opposing players, coaches and fans. Robinson was also a veteran.

Changes At Pentagon

Nevertheless, his story didn’t make the DEI-God-forbid-we-are-woke cut in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s all out war on American history, which also included among its casualties the story of the Tuskegee Airmen; Black Medal of Honor recipient Army Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers; the 442nd Regimental Combat Team deployed in World War II, Japanese-Americans fighting for the same country that was sending their families — American citizens — to internment camps; the Navajo Code talkers instrumental in the victory over Nazis and fascists; even the iconic photo of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima was removed because one of those heroes was Pima Indian, Ira Hayes.

Within days the DOD announced it was restoring Robinson’s and the other pages, along with an eye-rolling, backtracking press release extolling the heroics and virtues of those swept up in the ongoing DEI hysteria — lest it give credit to people of color. While the DOD eventually got most of this right, unless it had been called out, several chapters of its version of American history could have been erased altogether.

The depth of such anti-DEI and anti-woke sentiment goes beyond nonsensical. The DOD took down a page recounting the story of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped an atomic weapon on Hiroshima, Japan. Apparently “Gay” was unacceptable, although as any Fourth Grader with a dependable internet connection can tell you, Enola Gay was the name of pilot Paul Tibbets’ mother. Unchecked executive orders and a complicit Congress are rewriting the American story, aided by lies of omission.

Differences Are Real

Some argue that little difference exists between previous administrations changing the names of military bases to remove those who were members of the Confederacy and the DOD’s current elimination of “wokeness.” This of course would require one to believe the life and achievements of Jackie Robinson, a Medal of Honor recipient, the Navajo Code Talkers and more men and women of color who risked their lives in service to their country is on a par with military commanders at war with the U.S. over slavery.

I’ve come to expect little in the way of resistance to such gutting of the nation’s narrative from Nebraska’s congressional quintet in Washington. They are among the silent in this ongoing assault on our history … as well as on the battery on our democracy and Constitution.

Much of it seemingly comes from the same, single-entry playbook: We don’t like your ideas, how you vote, what you read, whom you love, whatever deity you worship … including no deity, the language you speak or your search for more history, not less. So here are roadblocks to your thinking, voting, reading, loving, worshiping and searching.

Issues Closer To Home

Nor is the malignant mischief afoot confined to the Beltway. The Nebraska Legislature, for example, is considering adding laws that eliminate tenure at its public colleges and universities, anything deemed DEI on those same campuses and a redundant requirement for public schools to maintain a database of their libraries’ inventory (pretty sure that already exists) and a process by which parents can find out what their children are checking out (pretty sure that’s a family thing).

When asked if his anti-tenure bill would “discourage free expression and academic freedom,” its champion said, “Yes.”

For historians, baseball fans and millions of Americans who value the truth, that kind of thinking puts our story in jeopardy of being recast at the expense of anyone or any idea which is considered DEI or woke.

Here’s a different idea: Now is the time to wake up, to use our outdoor voices, to insist that our history be preserved as it is, warts and roses, triumphs and tragedies, wins and loses. Time now to remember exactly who we are … not who someone wants us to be … in all our diverse and exceptional American ways.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/03/24/trying-to-rewrite-the-american-story/

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