There is nothing more boring than long retired former soldiers holding forth on issues military. But there is one rule which does apply – the further they were away from the sharp end the more vociferous they are.

Some years ago, on a barge going up the Mekong (holiday not during the war), a rather obnoxious passenger was holding forth on Anzac Day as it was actually that date on the day. He was full of stories about rum at dawn and this and that.

The blog’s wife listened for a while and then asked “Where did you serve?” Turns out he actually hadn’t, but he had organised tours around the country.

She then quietly said: “My husband was in Vietnam, but he doesn’t talk about it.” A useful intervention which made for much-needed quiet for the rest of the trip.

The episode was brought to mind by a series of some of the most despicable acts in US political and military commemoration history. Acts perpetrated by a draft dodger who faked bone spurs to get out of going to war. He boasted that avoiding STDs was an example of his Vietnam era sacrifice although his current mental capacities make one wonder what sort of contributing factors from back then have created his current mental state.

We should have known worse was coming when then Presidential candidate, Trump tried to organise a campaign photo-shoot in Arlington Cemetery and his staff bullied and physically harassed a cemetery staff member who tried to point out that what they were doing was illegal and distasteful.

Arlington Cemetery is – with more than a certain amount of piquancy – located on the site of Robert E. Lee’s former plantation.

Since that episode the draft dodger and his DOGE co-conspirators have been eliminating African-American, Native Indian and others from the records. Colin Powell had the letters DEI Medal inserted as did Vietnam Medal of Honour winer Charles C. Rogers. Emily Perez – the first African-American female offices to die in combat in 2006 in Iraq was also cancelled.

In a February memo Chief Pentagon spokesperson (he uses spokesman) wrote that by March 5 the department “must take all practicable steps, consistent with records management requirements, to remove all DOD news and feature articles, photos and videos that promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).”

Arlington National Cemetery has scrubbed information about other prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members. Internal links directing users to webpages listing the dozens of ‘Notable Graves’ of Black, Hispanic and female veterans and their spouses have also disappeared.

Perhaps the most egregious – and dumb in PR terms – was the removal of the iconic reference to the Iwo Jima flag-raiser which included Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian, who was one of the six Marines photographed raising a flag at Iwo Jima in 1945. What will happen to the Arlington statue commemorating the event is not yet known.

Multiple articles about the Navajo code talkers, whose communications in Indigenous languages made it impossible for the enemy to decipher them, and who were crucial to the Iwo Jima victory, were also removed. The Tonawanda Seneca officer who drafted the terms of the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox towards the end of the Civil War has also been cancelled.

The military has a highly technical word for such chaos – a clusterfuck.

Now the US makes far too much of its wars – given that it has been at war for the overwhelming proportion of its history – and hasn’t won any in recent years. Other than perhaps managing to defeat a few Cuban engineers at a Grenada airport.

Staff are trying to fix up some of the most egregious examples of this despicable disrespect.

Colin Powell is still DEI and has now suffered the double challenge of being Black and grievously misused by politicians over Iraq and other wars.  The stupidity of cancelling Enola Gay has also been fixed.

But perhaps the most important question is – how is any of this helping the people of the USA? Authoritarian states, like that Trump is trying to build, always try to delete or censor any history they don’t like. But thankfully public outcry still has some impact in the US.

Incidentally, the felon and draft dodger did a promotion for Musk at the White House featuring a Tesla car on the lawns. Trump said he plans to buy it.  It’s very, very short odds that he will stiff Musk and not pay up.