Objective:

The article compares the practices of memory of Colombian participation in the Korean War (1951-1954) in the “Sala Corea” exhibition at the Military Museum of Colombia and the “Galería Naval” display at the Naval Museum of the Caribbean. The research shows how these narratives are made by the Colombian Army and Navy, and questions how these representations of the past let identify frames of interpretation of the armed conflict from the Military Forces’ point of view.

Methodology:

Based on social memory, museum studies, the concept of “politics of display” and analysis of discourse, ethnographic observation is made in the two exhibitions.

Originality:

Despite the Military Forces being an actor that participates in the battles of historical memory in the country, memories in military museums are not a significant topic in Colombian academia. Especially, the role of Colombia in the Korean War has been insufficiently studied by the historic discipline, which opens questions related to the function of this war as an inflection point in the military institution’s politics of counterinsurgency.

Conclusions:

The paper explains how both museums use a discursive strategy of concealment that allows characterizing certain practices of memory by the military, its impact on the national indoctrination in the eighties and suggests debates about the permanence of these forms of the construction of the past in the new battles for historical memory in Colombia.