Korea (Location Key)

In the short story "By the People" Devries earns a Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery as the commander of a unit of Negro troops during the Korean War. The Korean peninsula was divided into two countries in 1948. The Korean War in which Devries served so heroically began in June 1950, when North Korea invaded the South. U.S. troops began arriving to defend South Korea that same year; by 1951, when Devries arrived there, hundreds of thousands of Americans were engaged. The War has never formally ended, but armed conflict came to an end in July 1953. (When Faulkner re-tells Devries' story in The Mansion, he moves this action to World War II.)