You’re darn right he needs computer training!
Jenkins, having surrendered to the American Army at Camp Zama in Japan, now wears a military uniform again and has been assigned to ‘clerical duties’. As if that isn’t rich enough, for a man who has not lived in any normal country - let alone the United States - he and his family now live in base housing. (By the way, did anybody else notice that he surrended on September 11?)
That must be an absolute trip for the two daughters, who have been born and bred in North Korea, and - unlike their parents - have never even conceived of life outside the place. Let alone life inside an American military base! Just imagine - your whole life, you are told that the Yanks are the enemy, worse than dogs, and now they’re living inside a base and their dad can’t leave. I sure hope one of them writes about it one day, because I want to know how it must feel for them right now.
By the way - anyone know what language(s) the family spoke amongst themselves at home? We know from Jenkins’ recent letter that his English skills have somewhat deteriorated.
So he has been given some kind of clerical job and a new uniform and haircut, and a not bad pay advance - over $3000.
The big crime of course is desertion, which is hard to prove:
“It is very, very hard to prove desertion,” said Annette Eddie-Callagain, a former Air Force lawyer who now has a private practice on Okinawa, where many American troops in Japan are based. “You have to prove that the person intended to never, ever come back.”
Without such proof, the charge becomes the much lesser one of being absent without leave, or AWOL.
Eddie-Callagain added Jenkins may claim to have strayed into the North by accident, or to have been forcibly taken there. “If he was taken to the North against his will, he is entitled to a lot of back pay,” she said.
See here for the story on James Dresnok, another erstwhile American soldier who ended up in Pyongyang, as well as some information about that movie Dresnok and Jenkins made, willingly or unwillingly, for North Korean propaganda purposes. Dresnok still lives there, and some documentary makers are currently making a film about him.
It is looking likely that Sgt. Jenkins will plea-bargain for a dishonourable discharge. The trial date is November 3rd.
There are some people around who say “throw the book at him” and “let him rot”, which from my experience is usually the people who have not been anywhere near a military base, except perhaps to eat. Those who I know that have been soldiers are generally willing to be more lenient. And let’s remember, if he went AWOL for a day no one would be baying for his blood. Going to North Korea, he could have regretted it from day 2 and it wouldn’t have made any difference because he was unable to leave. To prove desertion it is necessary to prove not that he never came back, but that he never intended to.
9 Comments
Thank you for that clarification about what desertion is and isn’t. I have been one of those people saying throw the book at him and you are right, I have not been in the army or spent much time on base.
I guess, I wanted to see him pay for what seemed like loving a system so thoroughly corrupt and destructive that it was beyond words. Kind of like, when my dad said “I am mad that you disobeyed me, but even madder that you thought that it didn’t have any consequences. That I wouldn’t care.”
If half of what he is saying is true, about wanting to leave, and not being able to, and being beaten for it. I will have to rethink my opinion about him. I will anyway.
On a side note, is he using DOS? Screen black green or white letters on the screen. I guess they have to start him slowly. I don’t think he is ready for a crashing XP system.
Somehow, the idea of punishing someone for living as a serf in North Korea all this time seems redundant. I’d expect a verdict of guilty and a sentence of “time served”.
I think Annette (a nice woman, by the way) has been misquoted. The crime of desertion requires an element of intent, yes, but the intent is formed at the time of leaving one’s post. So, it matters not if Jenkins regretted having left his post after arriving in the Workers’ Paradise, and thus wanted to go back but was barred from doing so. What matters is whether or not it is proved when he left his post, his intent at that time was never to return.
Brendan, thanks as always for the legal clarification. I take some comfort out of the fact that you put more energies into ironing out our legal kinks here at this blog and writing your own.
Nevertheless, it must be hard for the US Military prosecutor (Brendan, what’s the special term for this guy?) to prove that, given that the letter Sgt. Jenkins allegedly wrote explaining his intention to desert is now lost in its original form, and only photocopies (you guys say ‘Xeroxes’, don’t you?) remain.
Hamel, I’m reasonably sure the prosecutor is officially titled the Judge Advocate. BTW, we (if you mean Americans in general) simply call them ‘copies’. Perhaps the previous generation called them Xeroxes.
I am very curious how this will pan out. Has Jenkins ever claimed at any point that he was kidnapped over the MDL?
Retired military guy.
As a former Korean-Based US Air Force NCO, I say let him out. Having been in North Korea for a zillion years this guy has suffered enough.
I would like to put some conditions on him like speaking at schools in the US and Korea about the evils of Communism in general and North Korea in particular or some such other creative punishment.
Give this guy a dishonorable discharge, squeeze him for some info about North Korea, and then make him speak at every liberal university in Seoul about how evil the North really is.
Who really knows what Jenkins has claimed? There seems to be just the one public interview with the Far Eastern Economic Review. In that interview, Jenkins seemed to have been inconsistent in his claims and was quoted as being surprised at the information his wife had been kidnapped — if he himself had been kidnapped this would not have been so hard for him to believe.
All he really needs to do to beat a desertion charge is keep his mouth shut and not testify. If it is true that the alleged “goodbye note” is lost and all that remains are photocopies, all his defense team really needs to do is put a relative or contemporary on the stand to dispute that the letter was from Jenkins. There are a number of such relatives, who have been claiming Jenkins was in the habit of signing letters “Super” rather than “Charles”, as his alleged note was signed. So that will call the note into question.
It is the burden of the prosecuting attorney to affirmatively prove intent never to return. The only one who knows Jenkins’ intent at that time is him; the note might tend to confirm a reasonable supposition, but if the note is disputed and the original evidence lost, well, the note is not likely to be convincing “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
If there are other witnesses, this might change the strategy for Jenkins.
Unauthorized absence is provable, because it’s just factual. Yes, the poor guy probably did intend to desert, but it’s the state’s obligation to prove so.
Since my guess is all that can be proved is his 30-year unauthorized absence (after 12 years of faithful service) then he’s not going to get the “dishonorable discharge” and possibly not even a “bad conduct discharge” (BCD, or Big Chicken Dinner as they called it in the Navy). Jenkins is in all likelihood going to get an “other-than-honorable” (OTH) discharge by administrative board after pleading to the unauthorized absence charge.
An OTH would leave him eligible for certain veteran’s benefits from the Veteran’s Administration, including health care at VA hospitals. I think, after his long term in North Korea, any military jury would take pity on him and decline to award the BCD as a punitive judicial discharge would deny him health care.
Annette Eddie-Callagain is right — if Jenkins can convince the jury he was abducted into North Korea, then he is owed back pay for that time in “captivity.”
As to Corsair and Mac Pac’s suggestion that Jenkins be required to speak at campuses in Korea, what makes you think he would be allowed by Comrade Roh to speak at campuses here? Hwang Jang Yop is virtually under house arrest, and North Korean defectors are not allowed to speak out.
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