Articles about the first female Thunderbird pilot in the US Air Force have been removed from official military websites, following a spate of similar removals of diversity, equity and inclusion content from a range of US government agencies and department sites.
Retired US Air Force Colonel Nicole Malachowski recently discovered that the US Air Force had removed certain articles about her achievements as the first woman to fly on any Department of Defense military jet demonstration team.
Malachowski had served in the Air Force for 21 years and has more than 2,300 hours in six different Air Force aircraft, flying F-15E Strike Eagles in three operational fighter squadrons and commanding a fighter squadron during her career.
An Air Force public affairs representatives from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina confirmed to 9NEWS that the articles had been removed from official sites to comply with Trump administration’s directives to eliminate content related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).
Malachowski told Denver’s 9News that pre-existing articles with headlines such as A life in flight for first woman ‘Thunderbirds’ pilot have become inaccessible on both the Air Force and Marine Corps websites.
“When you click on that link, it’ll literally say ‘404 page not found,'” Malachowski said. “It’s been really just shocking to me to see that we would censor the historical fact, the historical stories, the historical contributions of service members and veterans.”
The 50-year old retired colonel described the censorship as “un-American” and harmful to national values, adding, “There was indeed a time when women and minorities could not fly aircraft in defense of their country. For us to act like those barriers never happened or those barriers were never broken, is to completely ignore our history.”
“It’s not about one article or one group’s story being erased,” she continued. “It’s about censorship, and censorship is a slippery slope that our country cannot go down. I can’t believe that something like this is happening in the country whose uniform I wore.”
Malachowski, an inductee into both the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the Women in Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame, stressed the importance of military history accurately reflecting all those who have served, saying, “We need our military to reflect the America that it represents.”
“That includes countless women and minorities who’ve served. For us to turn around and say you’re good enough to serve but not good enough to be remembered is a complete slap in the face.”
Malachowski was a former White House Fellow, serving on the Presidential Transition Support Team (PTST) while assigned to the US General Services Administration in the late 2000s. In 2021, she was forced into retirement after a debilitating neurological tick-borne illness left her struggling to speak or walk for almost nine months.
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