Heeding Trump, Air Force won't teach recruits about Tuskegee Airmen

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders this week, including one banning diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across the federal government.

Four former Tuskegee Airmen — from left, Dr. Granville Coggs, James Bynum, Dr. Eugene Derricotte and Thomas Ellis — sign autographs during a 2015 visit to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, where they were given VIP treatment.

Marvin Pfeiffer, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

President Donald Trump's assault on federal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives has claimed a new victim — the Tuskegee Airmen.

A video describing the exploits of the groundbreaking African American airmen, whose combat service during World War II became the stuff of legend, has been removed from the instructional curriculum for new recruits at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, the hub of Air Force basic training.

Trump, in his inaugural address on Monday, vowed to "end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life." The same day, he signed an executive order dismantling federal DEI programs. On Tuesday, the new administration placed DEI officials on leave and ordered agencies to spike postings or advertisements promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

The effects were felt almost immediately at Lackland. A memo circulated among Air Force personnel said that "in accordance with NEW DEIA Guidance," portions of the basic training curriculum were being revised "immediately." DEIA stands for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

The memo said a video on the Tuskegee Airmen had been excised from a course on "airmindedness," a term for the habits and values the Air Force seeks to instill.

Also deleted were a second video titled "Breaking Barriers" and a third about the Women Airforce Service Pilots, an organization of civilian women who tested and delivered military aircraft during World War II, transported cargo and trained male pilots. Members of WASP were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.

In addition, a video on diversity was stripped from a human relations course for Air Force trainees, the memo said. It was addressed to "ALCON," military jargon for "all concerned."

The 37th Training Wing, which oversees basic and technical instruction at Lackland, had no comment.

An Air Force official, who asked not to be identified, told the San Antonio Express-News by email on Friday: "We are ensuring we implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President and are currently doing a thorough review of all applicable curriculum. We will provide status updates on curriculum changes as soon as we are able."

The official referred the Express-News to a directive issued by an acting assistant secretary of the Air Force. It ordered all Air Force commands and units to strike references to DEI from their websites and social media accounts and "cancel any DEIA-related training and terminate any DEIA-related contract."

On Saturday, the Air Force said it had suspended certain basic training courses that included the Tuskegee Airmen and WASP videos as part of a broad review of the curriculum to make sure it complies with Trump's executive orders. Those "historical videos ... were not the direct focus of course removal actions," the service said.

It's possible the videos will be restored once the curriculum review has been completed, an Air Force spokesperson said. "If it's a history class, then those could be part of the history class. The mandate was just to address the diversity content."

'Heartbroken'

Word of the curriculum revisions at Lackland shook retired Lt. Col. Olga Custodio, the Air Force's first Hispanic female pilot.

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"I don't understand why eliminating history is going to make a difference," said Custodio, 72, of San Antonio. "I don't understand the relationship it has with the DEI programs that were established."

She served in the Air Force for 24 years and went on to become the first Latina pilot at American Airlines. "Trying to take military history out of training or curriculum is trying to deny people the opportunity to form their own feelings and opinions and understand the culture behind everything that has happened in the past," Custodio said.

Retired Army Sgt. Maj. Donald Sparks of Houston said the Trump administration was "whitewashing the valor and patriotism of African American soldiers who have fought in our nation's battles since the Revolutionary War.

"Over the past weeks, I've wondered: Why would an African American want to be a part of our armed forces in this current environment?" said Sparks, 56, a 31-year Army veteran who served in the Iraq War. "We have an administration and politicians, most of whom never served in uniform, trying to eradicate a 'woke' military.

"It's the same 'woke' military from when I joined the Army in 1988. That same 'woke' military fought victoriously in Desert Storm," he said, referring to the 1991 military campaign that liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.

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"Heartbroken" was the reaction of retired Air Force Gen. Robin Rand, who led the Air Education and Training Command in San Antonio as well as the Global Strike Command, which oversees three intercontinental ballistic missile wings and the Air Force's entire bomber force.

"Without the benefit of knowing the rationale or specifics behind this decision, as a retired airman, former Red Tail 1 commander in Balad, Iraq, and loyal supporter of our U.S. Air Force, I'm saddened by this news," he said. "I, along with the thousands of airmen I served with in combat, drew great strength and inspiration from the enduring legacy of the 332nd Fighter Group Tuskegee Airmen."

In Iraq in 2006-07, Rand commanded the 332d Air Expeditionary Wing, a unit descended from the Tuskegee fighter group, and he kept on display the Tuskegee Airmen's World War II battle streamers: ribbons signifying a unit's participation in a particular campaign.

Dr. Brian H. Williams, an Air Force veteran and trauma surgeon who lives in Dallas, wrote on X that "trying to rewrite history will fail," and added, "The Tuskegee Airmen have a legacy of service that will never be erased."

"The Tuskegee Airmen bravely fought and died for our freedoms before this nation even granted them the full benefits of citizenship," wrote U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, a Democrat from Alabama, where the Black airmen were based. "To strip them from the Air Force curriculum is an outrageous betrayal of our values as Americans."

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A retired Air Force general, speaking on condition he not be named, said he suspected lower-level officers overreacted to the DEI directive and went farther than the Trump administration intended in pulling the videos about the Tuskegee Airmen and WASP.

"I'm hoping this is kind of what happened here," he said.

'It's history, not DEI'

Every year, more than 35,000 recruits go through Air Force basic training at Lackland. For years, the 7½-week regimen of weapons training, calisthenics and classroom learning has included instruction on the Tuskegee Airman and how the pioneering Black pilots played a vital role in the Allied war effort.

Well before World War II, the nation's troops had been racially segregated, in part because of an Army War College report that wrote off the role Blacks could play as aviators, saying they lacked the courage and fortitude to fly planes. African Americans were relegated to noncombat jobs, even in the war zone.

The all-Black 332nd Fighter Group, based at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, shattered the race barrier. The unit had as many as 14,000 airmen 1,000 of them pilots. In the skies over war-torn Europe, they flew 15,533 sorties, racking up 112 aerial kills and earning 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses and three Presidential Unit Citations.

As the decades passed, their legend grew as books, news media attention and a Hollywood movie brought their exploits into America's consciousness.

President George W. Bush awarded the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007.

Some members of the unit went far in the armed services. Brig. Gen. Charles McGee fought in three wars and lived to see his 102d birthday. He marked the occasion by visiting Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph in late 2021, where he received the red carpet treatment.

McGee was given a tour of a squadron and its planes and was treated to a simulator flight in the T-1A Jayhawk, a training aircraft. McGee spoke in a briefing room adorned with portraits of his onetime boss, Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr., who became the Air Force's first Black one-star general. Another Tuskegee Airman, Daniel "Chappie" James, was the first Black officer to reach the rank of four-star general.

His son, Lt. Gen. Daniel James III, would serve as commander of the Air National Guard and adjutant general of the Texas National Guard.

Racial barriers continued to fall over the ensuing decades. Gen. C.Q. Brown, a San Antonio native, became the first African American to lead the Air Force in 2020. He is now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but not the first Black officer to hold the job. That honor belonged to the late Gen. Colin Powell.

The removal of the instructional videos on the Tuskegee Airmen quickly drew scorn from people commenting on a Facebook page devoted to Air Force enlisted personnel, Air Force Amn/Nco/Snco.

"None of that has to do with DEI, they should know the history of the Tuskegee Airmen," one person wrote.

"That's so dumb, that has nothing to do with the woke DEI!" another wrote.

"That is just stupid," wrote retired Air Force Maj. Skeeter Lieberum, 72, of New Braunfels. "It's history, not DEI."

The Tuskegee Airmen, he told the Express-News, "are my heroes."

'Overwhelming ... bias'

Members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots and several predecessor organizations were the first women to fly American military aircraft. Their role was to free male pilots for combat duty during World War II. They delivered aircraft from factories to military bases, conducted flight checks, towed targets for live anti-aircraft gun practice, simulated strafing missions and trained male pilot cadets.

WASP members flew fighter, bomber, transport and training aircraft and collectively logged more than 60 million miles in the air. Thirty-eight of the female pilots died while performing these duties. In 1977, WASP members were granted veteran status.

The 2009 legislation that awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal said they "faced overwhelming cultural and gender bias against women in nontraditional roles and overcame multiple injustices and inequities in order to serve their country."