In February 2026, online users shared a rumor claiming that US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had removed the name of former Secretary of State Colin Powell from a list of notable military figures hosted on the Arlington National Cemetery website.
The rumor, which began in March 2025, refers to the removal of links to pages about Black, Hispanic and female veterans buried at the site. Department of Defense Removals in the early weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The Office of the Army Cemeteries, a division of the U.S. Army, operates A major military cemetery outside of Washington. Army and other military branches Report to the DOD.
For example, a Threads user reposted (archived) a meme on February 1, 2026, reading, “Pete Hegseth removes Colin Powell’s name from list of notable Americans buried at Arlington. Hegseth also removes every person of color and every woman on the same list. Only white men remain.” Social media users shared rumors that Hegseth, who was white, and Powell, who was black, died in 2021.
(@joeybraun50/threads)
Briefly, as of March 2025 – and continuing until February 2026 – a page on the cemetery website titled “Notable Military Figures” still featured a brief biography describing Powell’s military service, during which he achieved the rank of four-star Army general.
While neither Hegseth nor anyone under the Department of Defense umbrella completely deleted Powell’s name from the page, between late February and early March 2025, one or more individuals with access to edit the page removed a partial amount of biographical information related to Powell’s race, as well as mentions of his name from the biography of another notable service member. Someone later restored those pieces of information in mid-to-late March.
The rest of the rumor claiming that “Hegseth removed the name of every person of color and every woman” and that “only the white men were left in place” was not entirely true. In a March 2025 post from Hegseth’s personal X account, he called the entire rumor “fake”, later responding to a popular X post (archived) promoting the text featured in the meme pictured above.
In a March 2025 email to Snopes, Kerry L. Meeker, head of public affairs for Arlington National Cemetery, called the claim that Powell’s name had been removed from the website “false.” “All notable cemeteries are represented on our website – including Colin Powell’s,” she said.
She pointed us to a statement (archived) on the cemetery’s website that says ““No service members have been permanently removed from the ‘Notable Graves’ section of our website,” the statement also referenced. “Compliance with executive orders issued by the President and Department of Defense directives.”
President Donald Trump issued an executive order (archived) on January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, seeking to end “unlawful” programs and activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as DEIA, the “A” standing for access. The order targeted DEIA-related “orders, policies, programs, priorities and activities in the federal government, by whatever name they appear.”
Historical facts about Powell temporarily removed
An archived version of the Arlington National Cemetery website’s “Prominent Military Figures” page from late February 2025 shows Powell’s biography beginning with the sentence, “General Colin Powell, a Vietnam veteran, was the first African American to hold three of the highest positions in the U.S. government: chairman of the National Security Adviser (1987-1987), chairman of the St-2025 (1989-1993), and secretary of state.” (2001-2005).
In early March, another archived version of the page confirmed the removal of the fact that Powell was the first African American to hold three positions. Sometimes in between 17 March and 21One or more people restored the sentence on the page.
Between February and March, one or more people were also removed, then later reinstated, a mention of Pavel’s name in the biography of Brig. General Roscoe Conklin “Rock” Cartwright. The late-February edition featured a sentence removed from the page entirely, reading, “Cartwright founded a social group that provided guidance and leadership training to African American officers; Prominent members included General Colin Powell (Section 60) and Roscoe Robinson Jr. (Section 7A).”
Colin Powell receives the US Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George HW Bush at the White House on July 3, 1991.
‘Anti-Asian stereotypes’ and a clear oversight
Other temporary removals from “prominent military figures”. page Includes 17 mentions of “African American” and about a dozen for “black”. Many mentions of “African American” and “black” are described as milestones, such as Brig. Gen. Hazel W. Johnson-Brown, was originally documented on the page as “the first African American woman general in the U.S. Army.”
A biography of Major Kurt Chew-in Lee originally began by describing him as “the first Asian American officer in the Marine Corps.” as March 21That fact, as well as the words “Asian American,” no longer appear on the page. The most recent version of his biography also removed the following sentence that had been featured in previous years: “Kurt Chew-in Lee’s record of service not only honored his country, but also destroyed anti-Asian stereotypes: ‘I want to dispel the notion that the Chinese are meek, meek and rude,’ he told the Los Angeles Times in 2010. Those facts about Lee, along with a quote, reappeared on the website at some point in between. March 24 and March 29According to the versions of the page archived through the Wayback Machine.
In an apparent oversight of the process of removing racial content, as of March 17, the page still featured Lt. Col. Alexander T. Augusta was shown. who US Army as “the highest-ranking African American officer of the Civil War,” as well as “the Army’s first black physician, the United States’ first black hospital administrator (Friedman Hospital, Washington, DC) and its first black professor of medicine (Howard University).
Sometimes in between 17 March and 21Some mentions of “black” and “African American” reappeared on the website, according to archived page captures.
After we asked Meeker about the removal from Lee’s biography to destroy anti-Asian stereotypes and the fact that Augusta’s biography still contained four mentions of his race — and before Lee’s biography was removed — an Arlington National Cemetery spokesperson said. Becky Wardwell shared a link Video From Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell. In a March 20 video, Parnell said, “We want to be very clear, history is not DEI.” He also discussed making mistakes and mentioned the use of artificial intelligence to edit some content to comply with Trump administration orders.
Three women were removed, then reinstated
Parnell’s mention of errors probably refers in part to the removal, and later reinstatement, of the three women’s entries in “Leading Military Figures”. page. They were women Lt. Cmd Barbara Ellen Rainey“The first female pilot in the Navy,” Major Marie Therese Rossi, “the first American female fighter commander to fly in combat during the Persian Gulf War”, and Lt. Kara Spears Hultgreen, “the first female career-based fighter pilot in the United States Navy, and the first woman to qualify as a pilot of the F-14.”
In late February or early March, all three women disappeared from the cemetery website pages entirely, only to reappear sometime in between. 17 March and 21According to archived page capture.
Sources:
Burns, Robert, etc. “Death of Colin Powell, General Shattered by Iraq.” The Associated Press19 Oct. 2021, https://apnews.com/article/colin-powell-dead-covid-9c918dc1c137ebf368f2cbb461e4fad4.
Christensen, Larke. “Arlington National Cemetery Removes Links to Webpages About Black, Hispanic and Women Veterans.” Snopes14 Mar. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/arlington-national-cemetery-veterans/.
“Colin Powell | Biography and Facts.” Britannicahttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Colin-Powell.
“Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Priorities.” The White House20 January 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/.
“Learn more about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access (DEIA).” New York State Departmenthttps://dos.ny.gov/dei.
“Organization.” United States Armyhttps://www.army.mil/organization/.
“Our cemetery.” Office of the Secretary of the Armyhttps://armycemeteries.army.mil/About-Us/Our-Cemeteries.
“The Wayback Machine.” Archive.orghttps://web.archive.org/.
