LTC Gordon “Jack” Mohr. This photo was taken in Japan, when Mohr was a Captain. The patch indicates that he was in the 9th Corps of the US Army. Notice the serious expression on his face.

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War shapes societies. The so-called “forgotten war,” the Korean War of 1950 to 1953, shaped America in many ways. It was the first genuinely hot conflict between the free world, led by the United States, and the Communist world, led by the Soviet Union. Events in Korea led to a multi-decade Cold War which either blew hot or threatened to blow hot in many parts of the globe. The Korean War also came as a surprise. A bigger surprise was the fact that the American military, which had so overwhelmingly triumphed in the Second World War, had atrophied in just five years. The first year of the conflict was filled with humiliating retreats and setbacks.

The war also shaped America in that the conflict caused the national security state to come into being.