Describes the conflict between communist North Korea and U.S.-supported South Korea for control of the Korean peninsula. A hot spot of military confrontation in the early years of the Cold War, the Korean conflict was officially a police action by the United Nations against North Korean aggression, but it was led by the U.S. military. In the end, despite huge losses on both sides, North and South Korea have remained two distinct countries divided by an artificial barrier between a people otherwise united by language, history, and culture. The book explores the reasons for the war, the military actions, and the human suffering in what has often been called the "Forgotten War."