received the Medal of Honor for actions during the war. U.S President Harry Truman issued the order to desegregate the armed forces on July 26, 1948. Truman believed that passing this order would help end racial discrimination. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea and the United States entered to war. African American troops composed part of the task force. On November 24, 1950, 300,000 Chinese troops stormed across the Yalu River, and the majority black 503rd Battalion found themselves directly in the line of fire. The ill-equipped unit lost the battle and many soldiers were killed or taken prisoner by the Chinese. The conditions in these prisons were cold with not enough food. The African American soldiers spent up to three years in the prisons. The Chinese captors believed that African Americans were particularly vulnerable to anti-American propaganda because of the discrimination they faced back home and in their units. As a result, the Chinese subjected African Americans to anti-capitalist and anti-imperial brainwashing more than their white counterparts. About 600,000 African Americans served in the armed forces during the war and 5,000 died in combat. Many were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, and Bronze Star. Vietnam War The Vietnam War saw many great accomplishments by many African Americans, including twenty who received the Medal of Honor for their actions. African Americans were over-represented in hazardous duty and combat roles during the conflict, and suffered disproportionately higher casualty rates. Civil-rights leaders protested this disparity during the early years of the war, prompting reforms that were implemented in 1967–68 resulting in the casualty rate dropping to slightly higher than their percentage of the total population. In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson presented the Medal of Honor to U.S. Army Specialist Five Lawrence Joel, for a "very special kind of courage—the unarmed heroism of compassion and service to others." Joel was the first living African American to receive the Medal of Honor since the Mexican–American War. He was a medic who in 1965 saved the lives of U.S. troops under ambush in Vietnam and defied direct orders to stay to the ground, walking through Viet Cong gunfire and tending to the troops despite being shot twice himself. The Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is dedicated to his honor. On August 21, 1968, with the posthumous award of the Medal of Honor, U.S. Marine James Anderson, Jr.