During the Second World War. the Tuskegee Airmen broke the color barrier within the Armed Forces to become the first black pilots. navigators. and bombardiers. It was the impenetrable code created from the Navajo language and utilized by the Navajo Code Talkers that helped save lives in the Pacific. Japanese American soldiers volunteered to serve in uniform while their families were held in concentration camps in the United States. It was the ingenuity of refugee scientists escaping antiSemitism in their homeland that led to the American acquisition of nuclear technology. Diversity has made our Armed Forces and our Nation safer and stronger. Unfortunately. our Armed Forces was once a place of discrimination and segregation.