Ford concentrates on the hardship the ordinary soldier in Korea faced, focusing on the U.S. Marines, as they advance through Seoul, the naval support they receive and the cooperative effort of all branches of military service. He also takes a closer look at Medical Corps and shows its personnel medicating soldiers and civilians alike.
Ford makes a deliberate effort to show soldiers, black and white and South Korean, working towards a common goal: freedom from communism. He humanizes his story by dwelling on South Korean children who have been orphaned, giving us such charming scenes as a marine enticing the children to accept a sack full of candy.
There are other stories about the Korean war, such as the resistance of the Canadian Princess Patricia Light Infantry (from Winnipeg) who fought so fiercely at Kap’yong that they received a Presidential citation from the Americans. They went on to discover an entire camp of American soldiers who had not properly dug in and had been massacred in a surprise attack, most still zipped up in their sleeping bags.