Army Deserter Recalls Abuse in N. Korea

[thedrifter]

Oct 20, 9:38 PM EDT
Army Deserter Recalls Abuse in N. Korea

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A U.S. Army deserter who spent decades in North Korea says his communist keepers abused him and controlled every aspect of his life, down to telling him how often to have sex.

"It was the worst mistake anyone ever made," Charles Jenkins said. In words, I cannot express the feelings I have towards North Korea, the harassment I got, the hard life."

In an interview airing Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes, Jenkins said he was given no painkillers when a tattoo on his forearm that read "U.S. Army" was cut off with a scalpel and scissors.

"They told me the anesthetic was for the battlefield," said Jenkins, a North Carolina native. "It was hell."

Jenkins was a 24-year-old sergeant when he crossed the border into North Korea. He stayed for 39 years, appearing in propaganda films and teaching English.

In 1980, he married a Japanese woman who had been kidnapped and taken to North Korea to train spies in Japanese language and culture. She was released in 2002 and Jenkins followed two years later, surrendering to U.S. authorities and serving a month in jail for desertion.

The couple now live in Japan.

Jenkins told "60 Minutes" that his government handlers assigned him a Korean woman with whom he was supposed to have sex twice a month, and they beat him severely when he balked.

Ellie

[jegries]

For some reason my heart doesn't really go out to him.

[junker316]

I really can't feel his pain. Sounds to me that he got what he deserved for desertion long before he returned himself to US authorities.

[jegries]

And yet somehow he felt he would be better off with the North Koreans than in a fighting hole.

[Joseph P Carey]

I say he got just what he should have expected in Mr Kim's Worker's Pardise. Does he really expect us to feel sorry for a guy that was given a woman in his imprisonment, and he could not get it up with a Korean Girl twice a month? I lived with one for Five years, and believe me, there was no punishment in that at all! ;-D

[ggyoung]

Just waite and see 60minutes will end up making this turd a hero.

[rb1651]

ggyoung,

You're probably right. Should have been told when he left Kim's playground that he wasn't welcomed back here.

[outlaw3179]

somewhere out there a tiny litle violin is playing just for him... but I really dont care... fuk him