What was the domestic context in the USA on the eve of the Korean War?

In June, 1950, I was a senior in high school getting ready for graduation. I was 18. Out of a class of 76 about 10 to 12 were in the Navy or Marine Reserves. Most of them felt it was a good way to make some money without a lot of effort. In May, up to graduation in the first week of June, our concerns were with the graduation, and if all of us would graduate. My recollection is that there were a couple of doubtful classmates whose graduation depended on their final grades.

Most of us paid attention to the news which came by means of radio, the newspaper and magazines. The Soviet Union was a concern and Mao had taken over in China. The Soviet Union had also tested an atomic bomb. The Berlin airlift was successful, but most of my class, including myself, felt that we should have opened the road by force if necessary. We had all been witnesses to WWII, and had a somewhat bellicose attitude. Most of us had relatives who had been in WWII. We had all certainly talked to WWII veterans. We had one World War II vet in our class and one teacher was a WWII vet. My father was career Navy and had been at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. He completed his 30 years in 1944. This was in San Diego, CA and there were a lot of military. Both Navy and Marines had a number of bases in and around San Diego.

Jobs were plentiful, but most women were not in the workforce. Looking up the stats, it says 34% of women were in the workforce in 1950. Based on my experience, I would have guessed about 25%. My mother worked during WWII, but not outside the home at any other time. Both men and women tended to marry in their early 20s with men somewhat older than women. Babies generally began in the first or second year of marriage. Babies before marriage were rare, at least in my experience. There was considerable social pressure to get married before having children. Divorce did occur, but it was looked down upon. A divorced woman was often thought to be promiscuous.

I was in an all boy College Preparatory high school, so most of my classmates, including myself, had already applied to and had been accepted by a college or university. College tended to delay marriage. I intended to marry, but only after college. That was the plan, but sometimes plans do not work out. The North Korean attack on South Korea two weeks after graduation upended a lot of plans.

Truman was President, and my recollection is that most, if not all of us, thought he was doing a good job. I do not recall much support for Dewey in 1948. I changed my mind, but that was four years later when I cast my first vote for Eisenhower. Both voting age and drinking age were 21, although the drinking part was not always observed. Smoking was widespread, but I never started thus avoiding the addiction. I had tried it, did not like it, so forgot about it. At the high school I attended, smoking on campus was a cause for detention for the first offense and expulsion for the second. Both of my parents smoked, but they certainly would not have allowed me to smoke. That was for adults only. They were OK with alcohol consumption after I was 18. Drugs on campus were unheard of. One classmate had acquired a few marijuana cigarettes in Tijuana and brought one to school to show off. Most were not impressed, and he was generally looked down upon rather than admired as he had expected. If he had been caught, he would have been expelled.

These are my personal recollections of what it was like on the eve of the Korean War in San Diego, CA. I am sure that other experiences would have been common in different socioeconomic classes and in different geographic locations.