'We Don't Believe in Erasing American History' Says Hegseth—With Exceptions

Newsweek

4 days ago

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has come under fire from historians after announcing a Confederate Memorial will be restored to Arlington National Cemetery after it was removed in December 2023.
In a post on X, Hegseth said the Reconciliation Monument, which commemorates the Confederate dead from the Civil War, would be reinstated after its removal by what he termed "woke lemmings."
The secretary added: "Unlike the Left, we don't believe in erasing American history – we honor it."
Speaking to Newsweek, one historian accused Hegseth of forcing libraries at U.S. armed forces academies to "remove books that treat subjects in our history that he does not like," adding: "That is what happens when you are actually trying to 'erase' history."
Why It Matters
The second Trump administration has sought to partially reverse steps taken by former President Joe Biden to remove tributes to Confederate soldiers and generals who fought in the Civil War.
The Trump administration restored the original names of a number of U.S. military bases that were named for Confederate generals, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina. However, in each case, it said the bases were now honoring U.S. soldiers who shared the same name as the Confederate leaders.
L: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks at the White House on August 11, 2025. R: USNS Harvey Milk, since renamed USNS Oscar V. Peterson, departs San Diego on November 6, 2021.
L: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks at the White House on August 11, 2025. R: USNS Harvey Milk, since renamed USNS Oscar V. Peterson, departs San Diego on November 6, 2021.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/ARIANA DREHSLER/GETTY
What To Know
Hegseth defended his decision to restore the Reconciliation Monument to Arlington Cemetery during a Fox News appearance on August 7. He said: "We recognize our history we don't erase it...we look at and learn from our history, all aspects of it."
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson was then questioned by reporters who noted the Trump administration had removed a portrait of General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2019 to 2023. Though he was appointed by Trump, Milley later became a critic of his former boss.
One journalist asked, "How do you differentiate between the Arlington Cemetery issue and this one?"
Wilson replied, "I don't think that's an equal comparison. I don't think comparing one person to a nation coming together in the aftermath of a bloody and catastrophic Civil War is an equal comparison at all. And what we're doing with the Arlington Reconciliation Monument, I think, should be non-controversial.
"Again, this is about unity, this is about a nation healing. We want to recognize that important part of American history and make sure that we're celebrating it as a department."
The Department of Defense press office referred Newsweek to these comments when approached for comment.
"Defense Secretary Hegseth defended restoring the Reconciliation Monument with the statement, 'We look at and learn from our history.' It's a beautiful bronze monument, but its message celebrates a cause that General and President Ulysses S. Grant called 'one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse,'" Professor Calvin Schermerhorn, a historian of slavery and capitalism at Arizona State University, told Newsweek. "A close look at the monument shows that it depicts an enslaved Black bodyservant attending his Confederate master and an enslaved woman tending the child of another Rebel soldier.
"The monument was not built during the Civil War. It was placed fifty years later, in 1914, by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in an era of Jim Crow to celebrate the Confederate cause of white supremacy," Schermerhorn said. "Its message of 'reconciliation' was an appeal to forgive the treason and appreciate the sacrifices of Confederates who fired on the U.S. flag and killed hundreds of thousands of uniformed American soldiers and sailors."
In March, the Associated Press reported that 26,000 images and online posts on various government websites had been flagged for deletion by the Department of Defense as part of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) purge. Images removed included baseball and civil rights legend Jackie Robinson, though this was later restored with Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell commenting, "History is not DEI."
The Trump administration also renamed the USNS Harvey Milk, a replenishment oiler, as the USNS Oscar V. Peterson after a Medal of Honor recipient. The original name honored gay rights activist Harvey Milk.
In a statement, the Pentagon said: "Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief's priorities, our nation's history, and the warrior ethos. Any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete."
"The current administration is rewriting history, but in a very particular way," Mark Shanahan, an associate professor and expert in U.S. Politics at the University of Surrey, told Newsweek. "It is seeking to control the country's narrative, removing the stories of marginalized communities and playing up the white settler contribution, irrespective of their involvement in slavery or First Nation genocide, for instance. In taking such a very macho stance towards eradicating DEI, it only serves to highlight the thin-skinned insecurity among the DOD's current political leaders."
What People Are Saying
Professor Emeritus J. William Harris, a historian who taught at the University of New Hampshire, told Newsweek: "This is an appalling decision. Taking down monuments is not a question of erasing history, but of deciding who, in our history, that we should publicly honor. I would note that, when Fort Liberty in North Carolina, formerly named for Confederate General Braxton Bragg, was again named 'Fort Bragg' by Hegseth, he lacked to courage simply to 'honor' General Bragg, and instead supposedly named the fort for an obscure WWII private who happened to be named Bragg.
"Meanwhile, he forces libraries at our armed forces' academies to remove books that treat subjects in our history that he does not like. That is what happens when you are actually trying to 'erase' history."
Dafydd Townley, who teaches American politics at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K., told Newsweek: "Hegseth's comments are illustrative of the Trump administration's continuous manipulation of the truth in its public statements. The Republican Party has purged individuals from its version of American history. Those that are ideologically opposed or do not fit the traditional values it claims to represent, have been removed or hidden from plain view. Hardly surprising, after all, the party has been led by the last decade by a man who has championed alternative facts and continuously contradicts its own claims."
Adam Green, an expert in African American history at the University of Chicago, told Newsweek: "The question of whether 'honor' can continue to be extended to those that fought to uphold the Confederacy, or those that engaged in violent removal of indigenous peoples from lands they lived in for generations, or those who participated in and profited from slavery, reflects the reality that the United States has been a field of free thinking to the degree that it not only tolerated, but encouraged, debate over its mission and its record across its population.
"Without this consistent renewal of how people understand themselves as Americans, we only have intolerance, paranoia, weaponized obsession with grievance, and naive invocations of 'greatness' as our heritage, in place of a fuller understanding of our history, good and bad.
"We are also left in thrall of powerful individuals' vanity, insecurity, and resentments as the basis of what we should know and remember about our nation, rather than enabling the vast store of experience from all who have lived in this country to compose and share its story—its past as a resource to learn from, its future as a means to inspire people to gain honor and achieve greatness—in many ways, not one."
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will seek to restore additional Confederate memorials that were removed over the past decade.
"History does not fit into pre-conceived or pre-fabricated categories that simplify what is ever complex. Erasing history is a fool's errand done in the service of trying to flatten the past's complexity to serve goals other than illuminating the richness, the contradictions, the triumphs, and the tragedies of the American past. It might be expedient. But it won't be lasting. Neither American history nor the American people will capitulate to this," USC Dornsife Professor William Deverell told Newsweek.