Apparently he’d been facing some sort of disciplinary action, but how can ANYONE think this is a good solution to your problems?
Lucky to be repatriated, considering.
Ha!
He must be a real POS, if the Norks sent him back. I’d say his career is over, but this is the clownworld timeline, so stay tuned…
Where are you seeing that N. Korea gave him back?
They didn’t, he’s being “detained” by the North. I can’t imagine then returning him without something in return.
They are going to debrief the fuck out of him for quite a while. He may never come back.
I don’t know who the ‘deserter’ is, and I really don’t care.
I’m prepared to trade him for Donald J. Trump, sight unseen.
He better hope he doesn’t end up like Jenkins, the American defector who ended up having to spend 40 years in NK.
If he joined in 2021 and is a private then he’s a shitbag.
This in the CNN story is funny:
Um, when a U.S. soldier walks into North Korea, that’s a very strong indication. And the apparent fact that he walked away from his unit at the airport, only defecting hours later, shows it wasn’t just done on a momentary impulse.
NK will use this to try to humiliate an administration it wants to lose in next year’s election. Biden had better not fall for it by acting like the soldier is still an American. (I know he is officially an American because he didn’t pay our ridiculous $2,350 citizenship renunciation fee — that needs to be eliminated.)
The soldier, who was identified as Pvt. Travis T. King, had recently been released from a South Korean prison after being arrested on assault charges, according to a U.S. official familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly. U.S. military officials had planned to send him to Fort Bliss, Texas, to face additional disciplinary actions.
From NYT. Any problem with letting North Korea keep him?
EDITED: susan beat me to it on most of this:
And what about this:.
King was detained on assault charges in a South Korean prison
For what it is worth, I checked the criminal Justice rankings at worldjusticeproject.org. South Korea is ranked 19 (while the U.S. is down at 30). I think that being imprisoned in South Korea is not a good look.
Perhaps it was a bit of confusion in the article. The United States Army was returning him to the United States to kick his butt out of the service. That type of separation from the military can only be processed in the US, not overseas.
Another thing: the articled referred to him as a Private Second Class. That’s not a rank in our Army. He’s a Private (E-2).
Yet another inaccuracy in the article: it says he was on the tour “as a civilian”. Nope. He has not been seprated from the military yet; therefore, he is not a civilian.
Cullen Thomas wrote about his experience in South Korea’s prisons. King’s experience in South Korea’s prison was better, though, because the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) requires the US military to provide him certain “health and welfare” items, and to have regular visits with him while he was incarcerated. Thomas, being an actual civilian, was not privy to such things.
Sounds interesting. He was convicted in 1994 — a bit early in the process of transition to democracy.
And it seems they didn’t lock him up for something he didn’t do.
The U.S. has a history of looking out for the interests of its citizens abroad even when they do stupid things like this guy.
I know. The Secretary of Defense is quoted today as saying “I’m absolutely foremost concerned about the welfare of our troop.”
Secretary, he is no longer your troop. Considering him such makes the U.S. government look pitiful.
The only way to get him back is to trade something for him, and when the trade is done, Republicans will use it against the administration. That’s my concern here. As for should-be-regarded-as-former Private 2nd class King, I hope the North Koreans decide to treat him well. Unlikely, but possible.
When Robert Jenkins defected to the North decades ago, the North promptly forced him to act as “the white Yankee villain guy” in many of their subsequent movies (for the domestic North Korean audience.) Jenkins became something of a celebrity in Pyongyang afterwards as a result.
I’m guessing North Korean filmmakers are now sizing up this Travis King guy, hmmm-ing, wondering which roles he can play and how he can be cast.
Not saying you are wrong, but this is from military.com, a web site where I would have thought they knew about such:
Could be wrong again, but I interpreted it as that he was dressed as a civilian on a tour that was only for civilians.
I don’t like to jump on people when they are (probably) down, but I also think American government employees have a responsibility to be on their best behavior when on allied soil.
The problem is not just with this guy:
Two Secret Service agents sent home after off-duty incident in Seoul
From the US Army’s official website, it goes:
E-1: Private E-1 (PV1)
E-2: Private E-2 (PV2)
E-3: Private First Class (PFC)
…
The list of ranks used by the United States Army on Wikipedia has Private Second Class existing until 1920:
You might think that, but military.com has no affiliation with the Department of Defense or any of the individual service Departments, like the Department of the Army.
They’re a military-oriented organ of the Monster.com headhunting organization. As such, if their “journalism” department is running a little short of subject matter expertise, it wouldn’t make any real difference to them.