this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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United States | News & Politics

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[–] BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.world 48 points 2 weeks ago

Bea Arthur became one of the first women to join the U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Reserve. Arthur — then known as Bernice Frankel — joined the Marines in 1943 during World War II, just five days after they began recruiting women, according to the National World War II Museum.

Arthur served as a typist at the Marine Corps headquarters in Washington D.C. before becoming a truck driver and dispatcher at the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, between 1944 and 1945 and then left the military at the rank of staff sergeant.

Arthur isn’t the only famous name whose contributions were scrubbed, legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson, who was the first Black player in Major League Baseball, was also removed from the DoD website.

And because anything with the word “gay” in it apparently can’t be allowed to stay on the DoD website, photos of the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan are also marked for deletion by the administration, alongside photos of the first women to pass Marine infantry training, the Associate Press reports.

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 45 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Just for people who don't realize, they are deleting all this information, and preserving none of it other than a screen cap. This is gone for good.

[–] pezhore@infosec.pub 37 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Even if it's backed up, will those backups be retained for 4 years? 8 years? By the time someone is in power will they even be able to restore this content? Probably not.

We're left with things like Wikipedia and archive.org snapshots - second hand resources that can easily go away.

The brain drain is real and fucking terrifying.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 weeks ago

Tbf, and I know the world has all but forgotten about them even though they were mentioned in reference elsewhere in this thread, but books are in fact real, and they can't rid the world of this information without kicking in doors to confiscate Bea Arthur's biography from every shelf in America.

Also, sidenote, the Golden Girls fucking rules. One of the best shows ever made.

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

The pentagon has said they aren't preserving anything other than a screen cap at best. Your either getting a screen cap low res, no links, or nothing. I'm guessing a lot of it is nothing.

[–] darkpanda@lemmy.ca 26 points 2 weeks ago

It’s effectively digital book burning.

[–] chalupapocalypse@lemmy.world 30 points 2 weeks ago

I had no idea Bea Arthur was a marine, what a fucking badass

[–] blattrules@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They cried about history being erased when confederate monuments came down and now they’re silent about actually erasing the history of United States soldiers.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Winston Smith works in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite historical documents so they match the constantly changing current party line. This involves revising newspaper articles and doctoring photographs—mostly to remove "unpersons", people who have fallen afoul of the party.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Smith_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four)

[–] nihilist_hippie@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Is this maximum-truth-seeking behavior?

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Much truthiness

Such verisimilitude