I woke up at three o’clock one morning thinking about the Navajo code talkers from World War II and how the Pentagon removed them from its website. And then I thought about Jackie Robinson and women in the military, and how they were excised as well. I wonder, “Did anyone ever think about removing Ted Williams from a government website?”

A few days later, I heard that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded that the Naval Academy purge its library of 900 books, including an autobiography by Martin Luther King Jr. and a biography of Jackie Robinson, before he visited.

What about all the other information that has been stripped from government computers and libraries? It’s impossible to calculate the damage inflicted on our government, our culture, our collective memory as a result. All the years of struggle to make sure our government works for all Americans and values their contributions to our society wiped out with a stroke of a pen and a click of a mouse.

How are we ever going to restore or even really know what’s gone missing? How are we ever going to repair the damage that’s been done? And what is the point, anyway? To make sure Ted Williams but not Jackie Robinson lives on as an American military hero?

Is this how we’re going to “make America great again”? By distorting and destroying the historical record? By purging websites, libraries, and museums of women and people of color?

And, more important, great for whom?

Barbara Jatkola

Jaffrey