For this reason, nonintervention was not considered an option by many top decision makers. Instead, many feared it was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world. As far as they were concerned, this was not simply a border dispute between two unstable dictatorships on the other side of the globe. South KoreaĮven so, the North Korean invasion came as an alarming surprise to American officials. READ MORE: What Caused the Korean War and Why Did the US Get Involved? North vs. The Korean peninsula is still divided today. refer to as “the Forgotten War” for the lack of attention it received compared to more well-known conflicts like World War I and II and the Vietnam War. In all, some 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives in what many in the U.S. Finally, in July 1953, the Korean War came to an end.

The alternative, they feared, would be a wider war with Russia and China–or even, as some warned, World War III. Meanwhile, American officials worked anxiously to fashion some sort of armistice with the North Koreans. After some early back-and-forth across the 38th parallel, the fighting stalled and casualties mounted with nothing to show for them.

As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. The Korean war began on June 25, 1950, when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south.

Battle in the forgotten city