A former US soldier who deserted to North Korea in 1965 has returned to the US for the first time in four decades.

Charles Robert Jenkins arrived in Washington with his Japanese wife and two daughters.

They were due to travel on to North Carolina to visit his 91-year-old mother, who is ill.

Mr Jenkins left North Korea last year, giving himself up to US military authorities in Tokyo, where he was court-martialled for desertion.

He was given a dishonourable discharge and put in a US military jail in Japan for 25 days.

Mr Jenkins, 65, released a statement before leaving Japan asking for the US press to respect his family's privacy while he visited his mother.

Nevertheless, the Jenkins family were mobbed when they arrived in the US.

There has also been talk among some of the residents of his home town of Rich Square, North Carolina, of staging a protest against the army deserter when he arrives.

Extraordinary story

Mr Jenkins' case has received widespread media attention, partly because very few US soldiers have deserted to North Korea and partly because of his extraordinary life in the North.

Mr Jenkins, who said he deserted to avoid fighting in Vietnam, slipped across the border one night while on patrol in the demilitarised zone between the two Koreas.

In the North he married Hitomi Soga, one of five Japanese abducted by North Korea and freed in 2002. The couple has two North Korean-born children, Mika, 21, and Brinda, 19, and now live on the Japanese island of Sado, 300km (185 miles) north of Tokyo.

Hitomi Soga was 19 when she was kidnapped from Sado by North Korean agents in 1978.

She met Mr Jenkins soon afterwards, when she was introduced to him so he could teach her English.

After his wife was freed and left for Japan in 2002, Mr Jenkins finally arranged, with the help of the Japanese government, to meet her in Indonesia in July, before returning to Japan to face US justice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/4093134.stm

TRAITORS SHOULD BE SHOT!

This many years later I think it's time to forgive and forget. Living a life of virtual house arrest in North Korea for 40 years is punnishment enough.

My opinion is, I'll let you come back to see your family but I don't have to like you and neither do any other Americans.

en........i dont think he lives in a bad life in North korea..

he even acts in a North korea propaganda movie as an American...

and he got a japanese wife..

dude, i heard a saying, that if a man really wants to live a good life, he got have three things : 1. American house, 2. Chinese food, 3. japanese wife

He was a deserter, not a traitor. He was not charged with treason, only desertion of which he was convicted and punished. People do many things when they are young that they sometimes live long enough to regret.

Originally Posted by CSmaster

en........i dont think he lives in a bad life in North korea..

he even acts in a North korea propaganda movie as an American...

and he got a japanese wife..

dude, i heard a saying, that if a man really wants to live a good life, he got have three things : 1. American house, 2. Chinese food, 3. japanese wife

Bah I knew I had it wrong I have an american wife, japanese food and a chinese alarm clock.



Oh well back to the drawing board.

Originally Posted by CSmaster

en........i dont think he lives in a bad life in North korea..

he even acts in a North korea propaganda movie as an American...

and he got a japanese wife..

dude, i heard a saying, that if a man really wants to live a good life, he got have three things : 1. American house, 2. Chinese food, 3. japanese wife

American house? U mean the wooden ones with bad insulation that get blown away in hurricanes?

Don't get me wrong. I'd rather live in a cheap crappy big house than in an expensive small house made out of stone.

What is an American house? Do they mean victorian era houses?

Get back on topic.

na...american houses are generally big compared to average japanese or chinese's living place (usually apartment, and super damn expensive and inconvenience, imagine a blackout and u have to walk up to 40th floor)

now back to topic


does anyone here have a problem with that guy of acting as american in North Korea's propaganda movie??

is that sort of betraying his nation? like act as a "imperialist american" which fits North Korean government's propaganda image of what an american is

Originally Posted by bulldogg

He was a deserter, not a traitor. He was not charged with treason, only desertion of which he was convicted and punished. People do many things when they are young that they sometimes live long enough to regret.

He should have been charged with treason, convicted and stood up in front of a firing squad. He didn't desert to go home and hide out. He deserted to North Korea and took part in their propaganda.