Posted on 11/26/2004 9:00:23 AM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
Nov. 26, 2004 - After 40 years in North Korea and less than one month in a U.S. military jail, Army deserter Charles Jenkins will become a free man on Saturday.
The release of Jenkins, 64, ends the longest desertion case on U.S. record. Although American deserters from the 1940s are still on the military's wanted list, none has turned himself in after as long an absence as Jenkins, who abandoned his unit along the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea on Jan. 5, 1965.
He turned himself in to the Army on Sept. 11 and pleaded guilty at a court martial on Nov. 3.
Then a sergeant, Jenkins claimed he left his unit on a freezing hillside primarily because he was afraid of being reassigned to face combat in Vietnam. He said he had intended to cross into North Korea, then defect to the Soviet Embassy and eventually make his way back to the United States.
Instead, for the next 39 years he was held with three other American deserters, used as a propaganda tool and forced to teach English to North Korean military officer cadets. Two of the three Americans have since died, but the third, James Dresnock of Richmond, Va., still lives in the North.
During his court martial, Jenkins described a harsh life in the isolated Stalinist state.
"For many years we lived in a one-room house that we all shared," he said in a statement to the court. "We slept on the floor, there was most often no electricity, and we had no running water. We were allowed to bathe once a month, though in the summer we bathed more often in the river."
Jenkins said they were forced to study in Korean the philosophy of Kim Il Sung, which they did for 10 hours a day.
"If we didn't memorize enough, or were not able to recite portions of our studies on demand, we were then forced to study 16 hours a day on Sunday, which was our only day of rest," he said. "I longed to leave that place every day."
But while in North Korea, Jenkins also met and married Hitomi Soga, a Japanese woman who had been kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1978 to teach Japanese language and culture to its spies.
The marriage was what eventually got Jenkins his freedom.
In an unprecedented summit in 2002 with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted that his country had kidnapped Soga and several other Japanese. North Korea then allowed Soga and the four other survivors to return home.
Fearing prosecution, Jenkins initially stayed behind.
Soga's effort to reunite her family generated great sympathy in Japan, however, and in July Tokyo arranged for the Rich Square, N.C., native and his two North Korea-born daughters to join Soga in Jakarta, Indonesia. They were then whisked back to Japan, ostensibly because he needed emergency medical care for an abdominal problem.
Jenkins was discharged from a Tokyo hospital on Sept. 11 and immediately turned himself in to U.S. military authorities at Camp Zama, the U.S. Army's Japan headquarters. After arranging a plea bargain, he was convicted at the base just south of Tokyo and sentenced to one month in prison.
Two U.S. military sources confirmed that he was being released on Saturday, nearly a week early, for good behavior.
Jenkins has indicated that he intends to settle down in Japan with his wife and children.
He will remain on base until his formal discharge is completed. After that, Jenkins may still not be completely separated from the Army. Until his automatic appeal process is completed, he could remain on "involuntary excess leave" status for one to two years.
Send him to Iraq...he lost his head years ago anyways.
Mike
Not enough punishment. I wonder who went to Vietnam and served in his place...
This is a travesty. Our govt penalizes and sentences several members of our troops to hard labor in prison for making the enemy wear panties on their head at Abu Ghraib. And that was to break them so they'd give intell. Yet Jenkins defected to the enemy, gave aid and comfort to the enemy, even taught the enemy how to defeat the US. In effect causing the murder of many of our troops. And HE ONLY GETS 30 DAYS IN JAIL!
I would say he got 40 years + 30 days in jail. Looks to me like the Koreans served as the prison guards. He gave up his honor because he was a coward, he paid with his youth. Now he has nothing, no honor, no pride, no good memories, only the sad final decay of his body that will eventually catch up with his soul.
Leave him be - he is not worth the cost of keeping him in prison.
I agree, he's punished enough.
I'm a veteran and my first reaction to his arrest was "Execute the SOB!", but the more I read about his life, the more pathetic he seems. I'm ready to turn the other cheek.
Well stated.
He could not have suffered worse.
Like a murderer of his parents begging mercy for an orphan, himself, this cockroach has "suffered enough", according to the naive and the gullible alike. Next, imagine the suffering of Scott Peterson and O.J. Simpson.
Anyone who choses to go to North Korea over a combat deployment won't be getting over, in my opinion.
This is today's America. This is how we deal with traitors. George Washington is rolling over in his grave.
His discriptions of the HELL he lived in while in NK seem to me to be punishment enough.
And the liberals all say we should depend on the United Nations to correct the wrongs of the world...and WHERE are they while millions suffer in NK?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.