After his first week on the job, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth banned cultural awareness months in the military.
This includes events like Black History Month in February, Women’s History Month in March, Pride Month in June, and National Hispanic Heritage Month, which takes place from mid-September until mid-October.
But there appears to be an exception to this new policy: St. Patrick’s Day.
Sig Christenson, an investigative reporter at the San Antonio Express-News, said he couldn’t really find anyone who had a clear reason as to the distinction.
“There’s not really a reason why, apparently. That is a celebration of culture, and it’s a religious celebration as well,” he said. “So some people thought that was odd, and one of them on an Air Force enlisted forum wrote ‘Sort of wondering if this is allowed with the new rules, or if it is, it raises some questions about why certain cultural events are allowed and others aren’t.’”
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In the past, cultural awareness events have been observed in the military without much comment or complaint, Christenson said.
“There might be posters in a hallway that say Black History Month or Women’s History Month, and there may be classes where people talk about women’s history,” he said. “The folks in basic training teach recruits about the exploits of the Tuskegee Airmen and of women pilots and those two groups were at one time discriminated against by the military. And so they talk about how these pathfinders came through and changed the way the world looked at Black people.”
However, these classes and discussions have been discontinued, Christenson said.
“They have been labeled by the Defense Secretary as divisive, which is an opinion. Nobody, as I said, has ever even mentioned it in the past. It was never a subject of conversation, so I’m not sure whether people were bothered by it or not. I suspect not, given that nobody ever complained,” he said. “They’re arguing that you can’t really talk much about one group of people without dividing others, without creating division.”
The announcement from the Pentagon earlier this year said they didn’t want to use official resources for cultural awareness months. However, Christenson said St. Patrick’s Day was framed differently by the public affairs representatives he spoke with.
“One person with public affairs said celebrating this holiday appropriately may serve to build camaraderie and an esprit de corps,” he said. “I guess if you’re drinking some green beer, that can build camaraderie.
“There were various statements made in the story about it and I don’t know that anybody has a clear argument to make … one person who questioned it said, ‘so it’s okay to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, which is based on a culture, but not other cultures, make it make sense.’ And that kind of is the nut of the criticism.”
