Military was instructed to search keywords including ‘first’ and ‘history’ during rushed purge of Pentagon websites

United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact group at NATO headquarters in Brussels, on Feb. 12. (Omar Havana/AP via CNN Newsource)

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s February memo ordering all diversity, equity and inclusion-related content to be removed from Pentagon websites was so vague that military units were instructed to simply use keyword searches like “racism,” “ethnicity,” “history” and “first” when searching for articles and photos to remove, and to interpret the directive “broadly,” multiple defense officials told CNN.

The implications of Hegseth’s memo were overwhelming, since the U.S. Defense Department manages over 1,000 public-facing websites and a huge visual media database known as DVIDS – with officials expected to purge everything relevant within two weeks. As a result, the manual work of individual units was supplemented with an algorithm that also used keywords to automate much of the purge, officials explained.

Other keywords officials were instructed to search for included “firsts” in history, including content about the first female ranger and first Black commanding general, as well as the words “LGBTQ,” “historic,” “accessibility,” “opportunity,” “belonging,” “justice,” “privilege,” respect” and “values,” according to a list reviewed by CNN.

A defense official acknowledged that, in hindsight, the strict timeline could have been handled differently and said the search terms were suggestions from an internal defense agency to help units meet the secretary’s directive.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a video posted to X on Thursday that the effort “was an arduous – but incredibly important – undertaking,” with an “aggressive timeline.”

“Every now and then, because of the realities of AI tools and other software, some important content was incorrectly pulled offline to be reviewed,” Parnell said. “We want to be very, very clear: History is not DEI. When content is either mistakenly removed – or if it is maliciously removed – we continue to work quickly to restore it.”

One defense official said of the removal of “firsts” in the military, “That’s just history. It’s not really DEI – it’s literally just history.”

Other keywords to look for included “gender based violence,” “cultural observances,” “cultural awareness,” “African ethnicity,” “Asian ethnicity,” “Caucasian ethnicity” and “Hispanic ethnicity.”

One defense official said every social media post was being pored over to the most minute detail, particularly for things like military partner training abroad. The people tasked with doing so had to determine if a post about a training event for another country’s military that included women, for example, could be tied back to some diversity or inclusion initiative — or if it was simply because the unit in question was largely made up of women.

Multiple units had to ask for extensions on the deadline because of the amount of content they were combing through in a short period of time, three officials said.

One of the officials raised concerns with their superior about potential violations of government record retention laws and asked for an extension to ensure everything was in compliance, but their request was denied, according to emails reviewed by CNN.

Another of the officials said they had to bring in a few other people to their team to help complete it in time, pulling them away from other tasks.

Meanwhile, “validation teams” are now being dispatched to military bases to ensure that troops are complying with Hegseth’s directive, according to one official and a statement from the Air Force. Multiple officials also confirmed to CNN that a lieutenant colonel has been dispatched from the Pentagon to travel to every combatant command around the world, holding meetings with staff and ensuring compliance with the policy.

The lack of guidance and the pressure from above to comply has led to a massive “overcorrection” and the removal of thousands of articles and images that were either completely unrelated to DEI issues – like Holocaust remembrance, suicide prevention and the Enola Gay aircraft – or that commemorated war heroes like World War II Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Harold Gonsalves and historically significant service members like Jackie Robinson and the Navajo code-talkers.

And while units made an effort to archive content internally, limitations that exist on various social media platforms made it difficult to do so in the instance officials determined the posts should be brought back. One defense official said Facebook and X, or Twitter, don’t have good archiving tools to keep posts, which meant they were left to take screenshots of them and delete them for good.

The department is now scrambling to republish some of the content, officials said. But the confusion reflected the “move fast and break things” approach the Trump administration has taken across the federal government that has at times gone too far and forced officials to reverse themselves.

The time and resources that have been spent on deleting websites and images has also struck officials as at odds with Hegseth’s stated focus on returning the focus of the military to “lethality” and “warfighting.”

“Of all the things they could be doing, the places they’re putting their focuses on first are really things that just don’t matter … This was literally a waste of our time,” a defense official said. “This does absolutely nothing to make us stronger, more lethal, better prepared.”

Another defense official told CNN on Wednesday that the department is now planning on doubling back and going through the content again with “human beings” to conduct a more thorough review – a process that will take even longer to complete.

Article by Natasha Bertrand, Haley Britzky and Oren Liebermann.