Air Force Deletes 'CQ' Brown Quote, COVID-19 History and Bias Lesson from New Handbook
Air Force Handbook 1, a more than 600-page document used by airmen to study for promotion exams, was rescinded last month as service officials rushed to edit out anything that could be deemed in violation of orders by President Donald Trump or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to remove any material deemed to promote diversity in the ranks.
"Direct references to diversity, equity and inclusion concepts and nomenclature have been removed in accordance with Executive Order, Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing, 20 January 2025," the new handbook states, explaining the summary of changes.
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But the new handbook, which was reissued last week, eliminated more than just mentions of diversity within the pages -- some of the edits were just outright removals of quotes or deletions of past Air Force efforts.
For example, a whole paragraph on the Pentagon's response to the COVID-19 virus pandemic and Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership to quickly develop a vaccine for the virus during the first Trump administration, was completely deleted.
"In 2020, Operation Warp Speed was a collaboration effort between the Department of Defense and Departments of Health and Human Services," the now deleted paragraph read. "They partnered with each other to accelerate the development, production and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines. The [Air Force] responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by quickly halting nonessential operations, maximizing teleworking efforts for all airmen, and enforcing policies such as mask mandates and social distancing."
Trump signed an executive order last month that offered reinstatement as well as back pay and benefits to troops who were removed from the ranks for refusing the vaccine when it was mandated during the pandemic by the Department of Defense during the Biden administration.
The new version of the handbook -- which was dated Feb. 15, but appeared online sometime last week -- also removed a seemingly innocuous quote from Brown, the former Air Force chief of staff who was fired by Trump on Friday as part of a purge of top military leadership, including the services' judge advocates general.
"Before you can lead others, you have to lead yourself. We must develop leaders of character that are ready to create and foster environments of respect, inclusivity, and trust," the now-deleted quote from Brown read. "When airmen know they are valued, have high quality of service and quality of life, and are empowered to reach their full potential -- there are no limits to what we can accomplish."
A reason for Brown's firing still had not been provided by the Department of Defense on Tuesday.
Katherine Kuzminski, an expert on the military and veterans at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C., told Military.com that the removal of the quote wasn't surprising, but added that it was likely removed by officials due to the general's mention of inclusivity.
"Some things were cut out with a scalpel and other things were a search and delete for anything that had to do with inclusion across a number of federal documents," Kuzminski said. "So, I am reading a little less into the fact that it was Brown's quote than what it was about, even though it was something fairly anodyne.
"They're just wholesale removing any reference to the word 'inclusion,'" she said.
One edit to a section about inappropriate use of the internet removed a sentence explaining hate speech by deleting the phrase "on the basis of protected class (e.g., race, creed, religion, color, age, sex, disability, national origin)."
While the new handbook still prohibits "hate speech or ridicule of others," the removal of protected classes of people is notable, Kris Goldsmith, an Iraq combat veteran as well as the CEO and founder of Task Force Butler, a nonprofit that trains veterans to research and counter extremism, told Military.com.
Goldsmith said that by removing that phrase, it could open up opportunities for certain groups to potentially be accused of hate speech.
"What they're doing is they're creating space to go after Black Lives Matter, pro-LGBTQ groups, so that they can classify racial justice protests as racist against white people," Goldsmith said.
Additionally, an entire section titled "cognitive bias" was completely removed from the handbook.
The deleted section included lessons about "common ways of thinking that can cause individuals to make irrational decisions in some circumstances," and definitions for confirmation bias, overconfidence bias, egocentrism and others. While the word "bias" can often be used in the sense of discrimination against other people, that section of the book appeared to be teaching about mistakes in logic and reasoning that are commonly discussed in psychology, sociology and even economics.
An entire section titled "Fosters Inclusion" was also cut from the new handbook.
Edits to the new handbook deleted dozens of mentions of diversity. Among those cuts were a section encouraging airmen to "be inclusive," a warning for troops to be aware of "their own biases," and a sentence stating "focusing on diversity through strengths that contribute to the organization in different ways can help reduce criticism and avoid conflict."
The changes also replaced several mentions of "gender" with "sex." As part of their blitz of orders, Trump and his administration have said there are only two sexes and have worked to eliminate recognition and services for transgender Americans, including a push to ban them from military service.
The handbook did retain mentions to the historic Tuskegee Airmen and the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps.
A chapter regarding "professionalism" was added to the very beginning of the handbook, according to the handbook's summary of changes. Kuzminski said that is one of the more notable and nonpartisan revisions to the handbook, in her view.
"If I were to think of it in terms of a uniform professional and what the administration's priorities are, I actually think that's a really strong move to move the professionalism chapter," Kuzminski said. "That is the context that, regardless of your partisan views, that's the framework through which all of these other requirements should be seen. I feel like that's something that Secretary Hegseth would say, and I also feel like it's something that someone who personally identifies as a Democrat and as a junior enlisted person would also agree to."
The changes to the handbook pushed back the testing cycle for those hoping to reach technical sergeant, Military.com previously reported. The exam cycle, which was scheduled to begin Feb. 15 and go through April 15, was pushed back to March 3 and will continue through May 1.
Related: Airman Promotion Test to Tech Sergeant Delayed as Air Force Combs Documents for Subjects Banned by Trump
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