Spoke with my 93-year-old grandfather on the phone today (old enough to get drafted for WWII, young enough to get drafted again for Korea). And he mentioned that his basic training in Maryland was not segregated. He told me that racial segregation of the troops came later.
Knowing of racist and segregationist practices of the time, that story took me by surprise.
Is his recollection true? If so, was this common?
Desegregation of U.S. Military forces occurred due to President Truman's Executive Order 9981 : Desegregation of the Armed Forces, which was published in 1948. Before then U.S. Military forces and units were segregated along racial lines, although it was very rare for non-whites to be officers so these units would all still have white commanding officers. One notable example of a purely racial unit was the "Go for Broke Battalion", also called the "Purple Heart Battalion", a World War 2 unit composed of Second Generation Japanese Americans. There is a pretty good book written about them actually.
As a point of clarification, was he drafted for Korea or simply recalled to duty? If he was recalled to duty and served in the same branch as in World War Two then basic training would not have been required for Korea.