Journalist Nicholas Slayton (New Republic, The Prospect, Motherboard) took NPR to task for writing that a name change to the Department of Defense “will return the department to a name that it carried for much of its history”:

This isn’t correct. The Department of War, for nearly 150 years, was just the Army. There was no unified military cabinet level post overseeing both the Army and Navy until DOD. That umbrella was created in 1947. The Dept of war became the departments of the Army and Air Force.

Clarifying for those who were confused:

Did it carry that name for much of its history as NPR and other outlets are saying? No.

Further:

Yes this is pedantic but the body known as DOD was not widely known as the department of war for much of its history as NPR says.

NPR now has this correction at the bottom of its article:

Correction

Sept. 6, 2025

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that prior to 1949 the military was overseen by the Department of War. The Army was overseen by the Department of War, but the Department of the Navy oversaw the U.S. Navy and the Marines.

(The Guardian, whose similar language I quoted this weekend—“a callback to the department’s original name used from 1789 to 1947”—has not yet offered a correction, nor have most news outlets reporting the name change as a “return” to a previous name.)

I appreciate both Slayton’s pedantry and NPR’s correction.