It will be interesting to hear what he has to say once he is safely settled in Japan. I can just see a Japanese publisher approachig the both of them with a sweet book deal…

Yes, I have little compassion for his suffering, because there are plenty of people who stay loyal to themselves, their families, and their communities who don’t run to NK! Do we condone this man’s actions because he is stupid or just because its ideologically convenient (that may be where your values lie). Compassion and pity are crueler than duty or honor, because destroy social bonds based on honesty and loyalty. They are the nuclear options, which highlight human solidarity over survival. There’s unity in the charnel house, too. Mercy on the battlefield is usually deadly. Deserters should not be trusted, and although I do not support capital punishment, the sentence for desertion should equal the substance of a life. This man can serve the rest of his life, and he might earn my forgiveness.

This is a legal case, not a situation for compassion. If you think the UCMJ is cruel, or that judges lack compassion, then lobby Congress. Try and get a majority to agree with you! But don’t advocate watering down legal decisions or supporting the watering down to fit your religious notions of compassion and forgiveness. Forgiveness comes after contrite entreaty, not before, or so I was taught. And, even if youare forgiven, you are always guilty, just pardoned and useless to society.

Laws are made and enforced to set policy, deter offenders, punish, and induce reflection. I am simply pointing out that this case undermines those functions. And, it is a disservice to all those who are serving, have served, and will serve in any capacity beyond the narrow self-interest most citizens practice. Stop trying to conceive of the military as civilian life with bad haircuts and food and an occasional dangerous moment. Its a counter-culture that, whose members are sacrificed to protect the greater whole. Its not job training, social experimentation, or the place to find a spouse.

Also, I’ll accept a dissenting opinion from a vet (or friends still serving), but not from civs on this issue. This is a case where experience is required.

Anyway, the only people who have “earned” their citizenship I know are legal immigrants who bust their asses trying to sumersault legal hurdles of host countries to get a decent education, or the chance to own a house and a Ford Bronco (try doing that in India or Pakistan!)

He should be returned to Pyongyang, because one choice is all a citizen gets. Once you decide to leave, you just can’t go back when you want. Robert Kim can’t keep making trips across the pond every time he gets a job interview. Pyongyang doesn’t wnat him back because he’s great propaganda. Look! The coward goes back to his cowardly people, and they pity him! What a bunch of losers! All those schmucks have is greed, and we still got that Jenkins loser to come over. We brutalize our people, and they love us! Give them all our cowards quick! Citizenship is not a right, its earned. And, it is revocable, and not to be bestowed upon adults but once. Jenkins is North Korean, now. Give him back.

But, I suppose either way, he would not have done “hazardous duty” in Korea or Vietnam. Just from reading this article though, I think the latter route is preferable!

(Just Kidding!)

He has suffered much for such a terribly, wrong decision.

If I were God or a judge, I’d order him to tell his full story, from defection to leaving North Korea, to historians the military often uses (historians who work for the military but usually aren’t considered to be “beholden” to the military). These historians are good at digging for the facts and “reporting them.”

To put it better, I’d make the guy tell his story starting with the bad choice and the reasons he had for making it back then, then go into what hell he saw in North Korea, not just in relation to himself, but to all he saw in North Korea (the plight of average North Koreans too), and then let him go.

I wouldn’t even put him in prison while he told his story. I’d let him live comfortably on a US base in Japan or in the US if he has family he’d like to be near here. He has suffered enough.

I just want the bare bones of his story and what he witnessed in NK to be told soon.

And I don’t want that story tarnished even a tiny bit by the pure academics in Asian Studies programs or whatnot in universities.