“Used in War, Erased in Peace”

“Used in War, Erased in Peace”

It reveals something painful — and painfully consistent — about the United States that the military has repeatedly relied on the courage, labor, and sacrifice of its African American citizens while failing, generation after generation, to honor the promises made to them.

From the Revolutionary War to Iraq, the pattern is unmistakable:
The nation calls on Black Americans when it needs bodies, but too often discards their stories when it comes time for recognition, rights, or remembrance.

Black soldiers fought for a freedom they were denied.
They defended a democracy that routinely excluded them.
They shed blood for a country that refused to see them as equal citizens.

This is not hyperbole; it’s history.

• Enslaved men fought for the Continental Army, only to return to chains.

• Black veterans of World War I returned home to the “Red Summer” of lynch mobs.

• Tuskegee Airmen risked their lives while segregationists fought to keep them on the ground.

• Black Vietnam veterans came home to discrimination in housing, education, and employment benefits.

• And now, in 2025, we watch the Department of Defense — the most powerful and lavishly funded arm of the federal government — purge, erase, and downgrade the very histories of those soldiers it once depended on.

When the Pentagon scrubs its archives of the Tuskegee Airmen, the Navajo Code Talkers, or Black Medal of Honor recipients, it isn’t just an administrative error.
It is an extension of a long tradition: using Black service in wartime, and minimizing it in peacetime.

This isn’t simply indifference — it’s betrayal.
The descendants of people enslaved by government policy have answered every call to defend the United States. Yet the country has repeatedly reneged on the promises made to them: citizenship, equality, safety, opportunity, dignity.

The arbitrary nature of these recent purges — deleting pages with no explanation, removing histories simply because an algorithm flagged them — only underscores the deeper truth:

Erasure is easier than accountability.

Frederick Douglass, B.F. Smith & Son, photographers, 91 Middle Street, Portland.

But if history teaches us anything, it’s that African Americans have never accepted invisibility. From Frederick Douglass recruiting soldiers for the 54th Massachusetts, to Black veterans who fueled the Civil Rights Movement, to families who insist their ancestors’ service be recognized — the fight to be remembered is ongoing.

And necessary.
Because a nation that erases those who built and defended it is a nation afraid of its own truth.