Korean War one of several forgotten wars

Central California and Southern California are near ideal locations for filming Korean War movies, aptly demonstrated by the popular, long-running television series, M*A*S*H, which ran from 1972 to 1982. The terrain is largely rolling hills and low mountains, dry and sparse, broken irregularly by scrub brush, patches of trees, a close approximation of the countryside of South Korea and North Korea. It was a boon for Hollywood, which meant any film studio didn't have far to travel for filming locations. The large Asian-American and immigrant Asian population of Southern California provided a huge pool of ready film extras to portray South Korean soldiers and civilians, and the enemy North Koreans and communist Chinese. But Hollywood produced a fraction of Korean War movies compared to WWII.

The Korean War was little understood, much less welcome by an apathetic American populace and politicians, still war weary from WWII. Few Americans even heard of Korea until the war. The Korean War pit American soldiers and Marines and airmen against enemy Chinese who had been allies just five years previously. The American people immediately forgot the war as soon as it was over. But much of that forgetfulness can also be attributed to the overwhelming consciousness of an even more unpopular, longer-lasting war in Vietnam just twelve years later.

Today America's Korean War joins the ranks of forgotten wars including the Mexican War of 1846 and the Spanish American War of 1898, as well as even more minor conflicts such as the Barbary States War of 1806.