Videos about the famed Tuskegee Airmen and the WASP corps of female pilots were cut from Air Force boot camp this week, officials confirmed to Task & Purpose. The videos were part of three training blocks removed from the service’s Basic Military Training in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting programs tied to diversity and multiculturalism. The Tuskegee Airmen have long been one of the service’s most celebrated units.
“We are ensuring we implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President and are currently doing a thorough review of all applicable curriculum,” an Air Force official said in a statement to Task & Purpose. “We will provide status updates on curriculum changes as soon as we are able.”
Air Force officials did not clarify if new recruits to the service — along with Space Force recruits, who also attend Air Force BMT at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland — would go through other classes during the two-month course to learn about two of the service’s most famous early units.
A memo circulated on social media and confirmed as authentic by Air Force officials said that a BMT lesson on “airmandedness” that featured videos on the units was one of three instruction blocks pulled from the curriculum for new recruits.
The memo was first posted to the popular Facebook page “Air Force amn/nco/snco” and first reported by the San Antonio Express-News newspaper.
The ‘Red Tails’ legacy
The 332nd Fighter Group was the only Black fighter unit in World War II, segregated away from the rest of the then-Army Air Corps flying units. The units nickname — the Tuskegee Airmen — came from their segregated training in Tuskegee, Alabama. The program produced new mechanics, navigators and fighter and bomber pilots during the war for the Army Air Forces.
The Black airmen flew P-51 Mustangs over Europe with red-painted tails and were a favorite escort unit for Eighth Air Force bomber crews. Bombers accompanied by Tuskegee flyers on missions suffered some of the lowest loss rates of the war, a fact well-known by bomber crews.
For decades, many different Air Force units have paid tribute to the Tuskegee legacy. The 332nd Expeditionary Wing — a standing deployed unit in the Middle East from the 1990s through the post-9/11 wars and now a primary wing in U.S. Central Command — touts a direct lineage to the Tuskegee unit. The Alabama Air National Guard’s 187th Wing flies F-16 and F-35s with distinctive ‘red tail’ markings to mark the state’s connection to the flyers. The 99th Flying Training Squadron at JBSA-Randolph — which traces its name to the Tuskegee-manned 99th Pursuit Squadron — flew red tailed-T-1A Jayhawk trainers until they were retired last summer.
WASPs were early women flyers
The Women Airforce Service Pilots was a civilian-staffed organization operating under the Army Air Forces. Two earlier groups began in 1942, with the WASP organization formed the year after. Women, some with private pilot’s licenses, many without, were trained in how to fly Army planes. They in turn worked to train new Army Air Force pilots. The women in WASP also ferried aircraft inside the United States, the idea being to free up male pilots for combat roles overseas. By the time the program ended, more than 1,000 women had graduated the training program.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, also known as DEI programs. The order called for repealing existing orders tied to DEI as well as removing media and communications tied to it. The acting secretaries of the Army and Air Force followed suit with orders echoing that.
The memo specifically notes three videos, one each on the Tuskegee Airmen and WASP, as well as another titled “Breaking Barriers,” as reasons for the removal of the airmandedness course. Another course on human relations was also removed, with one video on diversity cited as the reason.
The 37th Training Wing did not respond to a follow-up question about why the videos, particularly the one about the Tuskegee Airmen, fell under the DEIA order and not general Air Force history, given the unit’s achievements and commendations.
The revision to the Air Force’s basic training is part of wider steps taken by the Trump administration over the last five days, as ordered by acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses. Pete Hegseth, himself a long-time critic of perceived DEI policies, was confirmed late Friday night as the new Secretary of Defense.