Description

Photo taken in the Chorwon Valley at a bunker fabrication site. Logs are being notched and cut to make bunkers to be assembled at the front. The logs were numbered and fit together like a puzzle. This is a location outside of a base camp, where timbers were brought in. These bunkers were being built for the whole 2nd Division. Martinez is on the left, and Robbie is on the right in the foreground of this shot. Robbie was the jeep driver and in Brock's squad (same tent & missions).Despite countless examples of brave and devoted military service throughout American history, African Americans continued to face discrimination and segregation in the ranks of the U.S. military on the eve of the Korean War. The battlefield pressure of the Korean War would become the catalyst for the full implementation of President Harry S. Truman's Executive Order No. 9981 that provided for the desegregation of the United States armed forces. Issued in July of 1948, the order set up a presidential oversight commission to work with the military on plans to integrate the branches of service, but black soldiers still served in racially segregated units with virtually all white senior officers when the conflict began in June of 1950. Bloodletting on the battlefields of Korea opened the door for the desegregation of the military. Replacement soldiers were urgently needed in the early days, regardless of the color of their skin. Commander in Chief of the Far East Command General Matthew B. Ridgway...

Record Contributed By

Tennesse State Library and Archives

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Tennessee