Posted on May 11, 2025
Pentagon Committee Created to Direct Book Banning in Service Branches
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People banning books... never end up on the right side of history.
The Pentagon dramatically expanded efforts to censor and remove books with topics such as diversity and anti-racism by ordering all military branches to scrub libraries of "divisive concepts and gender ideology" and pull those materials from shelves, according to a memo issued Friday.
The memo, signed by the acting deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, directs all military educational institutions, specifically noting war colleges and the service academies, to "promptly" identify books on about 20 topics and set them aside by May 21.
The Pentagon dramatically expanded efforts to censor and remove books with topics such as diversity and anti-racism by ordering all military branches to scrub libraries of "divisive concepts and gender ideology" and pull those materials from shelves, according to a memo issued Friday.
The memo, signed by the acting deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, directs all military educational institutions, specifically noting war colleges and the service academies, to "promptly" identify books on about 20 topics and set them aside by May 21.
Pentagon Committee Created to Direct Book Banning in Service Branches
Posted from military.comPosted in these groups: 
Political Opinions
Political Opinions
Posted 7 mo ago
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Don’t see where they are banning nor burning. Just removing from military installations. Where they do not belong. Go rent it at the library if so moved
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This move is wrong in my opinion. I have zero issues with the books being the libraries for students to read on their own. Being forced to read them is a different story.
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Howl-that!
And the back-story to the iconic VMI photo:
https://allenginsberg.org/2016/02/fridays-weekly-round-up-257/
And the back-story to the iconic VMI photo:
https://allenginsberg.org/2016/02/fridays-weekly-round-up-257/
Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 257 - The Allen Ginsberg Project
Cadets read “Howl”, February 19, 1991, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia. Photo Copyright Gordon Ball, 2006 Gordon Ball‘s iconic photograph of cadets at Virginia Military Institute reading copies of Howl has, of course, a back-story. Occasioned by Iain Sinclair‘s review-article, “Retro-Selfies” in a recent London Review of Books and Alan Baragona‘s letters-to-the-editor reply, John […]
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COL (Join to see)
Very interesting, and I suspect that despite what would now be recast as "woke indoctrination" instead of what it was - an education, that this class of Cadets... went on to do just fine. Freshman in Spring of '91 would have been the class of 1994. I'm sure I served with many of these officers.
"It’s true that some cadets, administrators, alumni, and faculty were unhappy about it, though not because of Ginsberg’s homosexuality or drug use so much as for his pacifism during the first Gulf War. But there were also many people in all those categories who were excited by the visit, and the administration supported us, even requiring the entire corps to attend (his) poetry reading. Ginsberg was aware of this and at the intermission told the cadets that as far as he was concerned, they had fulfilled their obligation and were free to leave. Roughly two-thirds of the corps stayed for the second half. Afterwards, cadets crowded around Ginsberg to speak with him and later lined up at the bookstore to get their copies of Howl autographed…. What you see in Gordon’s photo is not frowning, but concentration, weariness, and some confusion as Ginsberg walked students through this challenging poem."
"It’s true that some cadets, administrators, alumni, and faculty were unhappy about it, though not because of Ginsberg’s homosexuality or drug use so much as for his pacifism during the first Gulf War. But there were also many people in all those categories who were excited by the visit, and the administration supported us, even requiring the entire corps to attend (his) poetry reading. Ginsberg was aware of this and at the intermission told the cadets that as far as he was concerned, they had fulfilled their obligation and were free to leave. Roughly two-thirds of the corps stayed for the second half. Afterwards, cadets crowded around Ginsberg to speak with him and later lined up at the bookstore to get their copies of Howl autographed…. What you see in Gordon’s photo is not frowning, but concentration, weariness, and some confusion as Ginsberg walked students through this challenging poem."
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