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The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, has been the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense since the 1940s and is now widely recognized as both a visual and a metonymic symbol of the U.S. military. Of its construction, Pentagon historian Steve Vogel wrote: All did not go smoothly during the construction of the Pentagon, however. Despite the impression created by some post-war Hollywood films that depicted white and black troops fighting side by side during World War II, the U.S. armed forces were not desegregated until 1948 (three years after the end of the war), when President Harry Truman issued an executive order calling for equality of treatment for all persons in the armed services, without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. The racial divide that existed in wartime America (and the manpower shortages created by the war) affected the civilian workers who toiled on the Pentagon construction site as well: As constructing engineer Captain Clarence Renshaw learned to his dismay, the Virginia segregation laws didn't apply merely to cafeteria facilities for construction workers; he was expected to make allowances for segregated facilities in the construction of the Pentagon itself: However, according to Vogel, even though the extra bathroom facilities were eventually built, they were never identified as being for purposes of adhering to racial segregation laws:
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