[jhbadger]

It's not just the military in wartime though. My father was in the US Army in the late 1950s after the Korean ceasefire was signed but when they were still drafting soldiers to be deployed there. It was the first time he had any major interaction with African-Americans as they were rare in the small Northern town he grew up in. Serving alongside them and realizing that they weren't much different from himself was a significant experience for him.