The author's father, Clive Williams Kirkwood, is fifth from the left. He served in the early 1950s during the Korean War when his unit was deployed to Germany.
President Harry S. Truman abolished discrimination and segregation “on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin” in the United States Armed Forces in July 1948.
Truman issued an executive order, the first time that a commander-in-chief issued such an order to implement a civil rights policy, according to Farrell Evans (November 5, 2020) in history.com.
It took years after my father left the service to desegregate the armed forces.
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