On one hot summer night in 1982, US Army Private Joseph White shot a lock on the gate leading to Korea’s Demilitarized Zone and made his way into North Korea. He never returned. Of the handful of Americans defecting to North Korea, the story of this seemingly typical GI Joe is the strangest.
After speaking with Marmot and getting his opinion of this article with Asia Times I thought I would link it up and get your opinions. Trying to do a book on the defectors.
71 Comments
He could have been an operative sent by CIA or a wannabe who wanted to gain intel on NK all by himself.
In any case, he seems to be a patriot.
He maybe still alive in Russia, China or in NK. Or, the US may have paid off NK or exchanged spies. In that case, he is back to good ol’ USA with a new identity.
Some courageous and patriotic Americans do incredible things for the country. Especially, the religious ones. Just look at soldiers still fighting in Iraq every day.
God bless America!
Neff,
Thanks for that great write-up of the White defection story. As you probably know, there is very little about White on the net. Looking forward to the book on defectors.
Really good article.
To quote Jay Leno, “What the hell were you thinking?”
I would put my money on the NK female agent. Everybody knows the quickest way to a man’s brain is through his heart — initially via his—well—-you know what.
I think the Russians turned a few proud American soldiers that way in high profile cases and got them to do more than just defect. The penis route got them to collect and handover top secret information.
Good article…
In any case, he seems to be a patriot.
He was not a patriot. He was a confused, disaffected white boy who went to NK as an act of rebellion against whatever. He is like that guy played by Jeremy Davies in Saving Private Ryan.
And wound up surrounded by a country full of nuljis and bluejiveses. Death must have seemed a mercy.
Dogbertt. Um. You do know that the two you mentioned were somehow tied to South Korea and not North Korea, right?
I think you described yourself, to tell you the truth.
I was in the ROK in 1982 and in the Army. As I recall it was classic case of the a soldier told he couldn’t see his ‘yobo’ (not used in the Korean sense, with the GIs it was a kept woman).
He was shacked up with a girl from one of the clubs. Had trouble with his 1st SGT and had his pass pulled.
I have seen many a fellow do really stupid things when facing separation from their girl friend.
The dating a north korean agent sounds like urban myth stuff.
This is probably secret information, but what the heck, I’ll be vague. I know of one case where someone was being manipulated by a woman who was a spy. She probably worked for some organized crime syndicate. She was a master voice impersonator, so she would screen her phone calls by answering as he brother or mother. The guy was so messed up, they had to send him to a cult expert to get him ‘deprogrammed’.
Is there really that big a difference? I mean, I know kyopos get upset when people ask, “Which Korea are you from?”, but in terms of ideology. . .
Bluejives, for example, believes that Confucian Chosun was a very moral and just society because Koreans are somehow more moral and virtuous than everyone else and also believes that Koreans (at least the women) should not dally with non-Koreans.
That’s not much different from the official North Korean line.
Not to mention, as we hear ad nauseum, North and South Koreans are “one people”, so why are you drawing such a clear distinction? You can’t have it both ways, wjk.
Very interesting read. I imagine no one will ever really know for sure how he perished.
dogbertt,
I personally think that Chosun dynasty was not as bad as you think. People, especially women, had morals then.
As to Korean women dating foreigners, I can accept it if the girl is ugly and uneducated (she will be walking the street anyway. A foreigner can save her.) However, if she is a “peach”, I like to keep the quality Korean girls for Korean guys, for future generations.
Korea is not an international country yet. While I want it to open up more, I still like to keep good things for Koreans (and KoreanAmericans). I think Italians, Polish, or what have you, will think the same way.
Baduk,
I wonder how many women would agree with your comments about the Chosun dynasty and wish to go back in time so they can have the opportunity to penned in their houses and cook and feed everyone while the menfolk do God knows what.
And Baduk, we’ll let you have American girls as long as they’re fugly or dumb. We’ll save the pretty All-American girls for the good ‘ol boys. You don’t have a problem with that, do ya?
Baduk’s living proof that you can take the Adjoshi out of Korea, but you can’t take Korea out of the Adjoshi. Thirty years in the West and you still believe that way. Aigo.
Baduk,
Read Hamel’s journal for Chosun morals.
dogbertt, look around you. Why are you there? You don’t even like them, I think ?
Yeah, but what did Hamel know? He was just a stinking expat.
It’s a good thing your acceptance means squat to anyone outside your own head.
Actually, even the New York Times is noting how the quality Korean girls are refusing to settle for the wjks/baduks/nuljis on offer, who themselves are instead turning to Vietnamese women. I’ll bet, like you, the Vietnamese men think it’s great that the foreigner Koreans are saving the ugly and uneducated Vietnamese women.
after reading Neff’s link, I concluded that the went to North Korea because of a woman.
Can’t blame a man for doing that.
But, he was tricked.
And, by the time he wanted to leave, he was off-ed, or he’s in mystery status like Japan’s Megumi.
Why does North Korea take such a thrill in keeping people’s deaths in mystery? I don’t know. It’s kind of sick. They interfere with letting the loved ones move on with their lives.
And I found Mrs. White’s comments kind of stupid, to say it politely.
White was someone you could find at school, work, etc. He just made the wrong choice and he could never come back even if he wanted to.
I recall reading an intel report about Joseph White’s body, a mine shaft, and a drowning. At the time, there was no question about whether or not he was really dead. That seems to be a recently created question.
I wonder if White got to (had to?) live in the same house with Dresnok, Jenkins, and the other two guys. I’ve always had something against Dresnok based on Jenkins’ report that Dresnok enjoyed beating the shit out of the other GIs when instructed to do so by his handlers.
Maybe that report’s not even true. Perhaps we’ll learn more if the guy from the UK who has been threatening to do a documentary on Dresnok comes through.
Because it’s a country run by an evil dictatorship with no redeeming qualities (sort of like the Joseon dynasty)?
Oh, silly boys doing the silly talk, as usual. Obviously they don’t know they’re not smart.
ElCanguro,
Chosen dynasty was a highly structured society where family was protected as the supreme value. No divorce was allowed. Period. Women knew their position as a wife of a man and they were happy to raise children in that “iron-clad” position.
What about now? A husband and a wife cannot trust each other. Divorce can happen any time. Children can become a burden and women choose not to have them. And, since divorce is so prevalent, why marry at all? Just live with a guy and split if someone better comes along.
Chosun dynasty definitely had its advantages. I wish I were back.
About keeping the best for the country, every country does this. Whenever I date a white woman, I had to suffer through double takes and jealous remarks. Sometimes pretty disgusting ones.
Everybody is a racist at heart.
Even the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th wives? Aren’t there many stories of infanticide and intra-family scheming?
What about the “professional entertainers” of the day? Did they get married? What about bastard children?
No doubt you do; you are a Korean male, after all.
I’m sorry to hear that.
Are you married?
Actually, even the New York Times is noting how the quality Korean girls are refusing to settle for the wjks/baduks/nuljis on offer, who themselves are instead turning to Vietnamese women. I’ll bet, like you, the Vietnamese men think it’s great that the foreigner Koreans are saving the ugly and uneducated Vietnamese women.
First of all, there’s nothing wrong with Viet women. Just because they are poor and come from simple villages doesn’t mean that they are ugly or uneducated.
Besides, you as an expat or former expat should understand this phenomenon quite well. You and your brethren came to Korea as refugees of Western feminist ideology as well. Expat complaints of the entitlement issues of Western women and a myriad of other grievances as a justification for their singular affinity for Korean/Asian women is well documented.
I’d agree until I factor in the fact he defected to North Korea and in the 1980s - when the threat of being sent to Vietnam had long since past.
Going after intel targets through their pecker has been a time honored tradition…
#22 Baduk’s comment:
“Everybody is a racist at heart.”
No, Baduk, I refuse to believe that. I myself, my wife (a ROK national), as well as the vast majority of our friends and acquaintances, definitely are not. H. Kim has called me a “Culturalist” though…
#22 Bluejives’s comment:
“Besides, you as an expat or former expat should understand this phenomenon quite well. You and your brethren came to Korea as refugees of Western feminist ideology as well. Expat complaints of the entitlement issues of Western women and a myriad of other grievances as a justification for their singular affinity for Korean/Asian women is well documented.”
Bluejives,
when I went to Korea at the end of 1999 I went there to join the lady whom I had married before (in Germany), not in order to escape from anything like “Western feminist ideology”.
Please read the NYT article Robert links to in his post about the Vietnamese import brides in the ROK. The gist of the article seems to be that less attractive or self-assured Korean men seek to marry Viet ladies in their quest to escape from the “feminist ideology” (as you certainly would put it in your own sexist language) and the increased assertiveness of the women in their own country…
But, of course, it is somehow all the fault of the evil WHITE EXPATS…
Sorry, Bluejives’s comment was #24.
Thanks for responding to my remarks, Baduk. I don’t agree with your several of the comments you made but I respect that you wrote back to me with your views.
I’d personally amend you commment, ‘Everybody is a racist at heart’ to ‘Everybody has the potential to be a racist if they let themselves be’.
As far as I know, humans are born racist but become so due to a variety of reasons such as upbringing, social environment, past experiences, etc. I do believe however that everyone does possess some forms of prejudices, no matter how much some try to deny they do. Some just nurture their preconceived prejudices whereas others try to work and minimize them. But, I don’t believe any human being is fully without any kind of prejudice.
Whoops, been a long day. I meant to say ‘humans are NOT born racist ..’ Freudian slip, perhaps
“But, I don’t believe any human being is fully without any kind of prejudice.”
No, I do not believe that, either. If I said I would be free from any kind of prejudice, that would, indeed, be untrue and sound extremely self-righteous.
I merely believe that there are factors other than race that are much more likely to engender prejudice. In real life these other factors (e.g. culture, religion, sexual orientation, political views…) tend to be of much greater importance than race.
Language is a particularly important factor. Believe it or not, I quite frequently felt compelled to cut relations with people due to there being no common language. The lack of a common language between two people or groups of people is bound to engender serious misunderstandings, not only in sophisticated discussions but even with regard to the very basic issues of everyday life. Thus, normal relations become downright impossible. And this is bound to be so, completely irrespective of issues of race.
As long as there is a common language and, on both sides, a willingness to talk, mutual understanding is possible in the end…
Steve:
I believe that you might be confusing White with Dresnok. I know that there are some rumors that White had problems with his First Sergeant, but some of the guys that were in the Bn., insist that there were no problems and that these were just rumors picked up by the media. Dresnok, on the otherhand, did have a similar problem. He snuck out one night to go see his “yobo” with a fake pass and got caught. The day after he defected he was scheduled for a court martial.
WJK #18
I agree pretty much with what you said. My personal feelings are he was “off-ed” by the North Koreans. I heard - but can’t verify - that he tended to complain a lot and this may account for him having been moved into the countryside instead of being in Pyongyang - at least it is my understanding he was not living in Pyongyang. I think he did make a mistake whether he was seduced by the alleged North Korean woman or not - I have no idea. There are some accounts that White was met in the DMZ by someone who guided him to the North Korean positions but I believe those to be dubious accounts. He was young, made a mistake - and paid for it.
kpmsprtd #19
None of the still-living defectors have ever mentioned White - as far as I know. As for them all living together - no. The original defectors were split up into two groups after they attempted to escape North Korea by entering the Soviet Embassy in Pyongyang.
For those who are interested - Here is the link for the First American Defector to Korea that I did a couple of months ago.
http://english.ohmynews.com/ar.....p;rel_no=1
It’s always fun when idiots wax nostalgic over an over-romanticized depiction of an era in which they had the good fortune not to live.
So yeah… Let’s all go back to another time… Where disease was rampant, where women routinely died in childbirth, where ‘medicine’ consisted of giving a patient with tuberculosis a nice hot cup of tea… Let’s go back to a time where 90% of the population spent most hours of the day doing back-breaking labor just to have most of their hard work taken from them by a corrupt and corpulent aristocracy… to a time where things were simpler (after all, if your average life expectancy is 35 years, your outlook and expectations for life tend to be pretty simple).
Yep. The Chosen period sounds like a real hoot. One wonders why Baduk hasn’t off and joined an Amish community yet.
“Language is a particularly important factor. Believe it or not, I quite frequently felt compelled to cut relations with people due to there being no common language. The lack of a common language between two people or groups of people is bound to engender serious misunderstandings, not only in sophisticated discussions but even with regard to the very basic issues of everyday life. Thus, normal relations become downright impossible. And this is bound to be so, completely irrespective of issues of race.”
BTW, the people I was referring to here were not Korean (as, in my experience, the vast majority of educated Koreans speak at least some English, sufficient for simple communication - and I myself also speak, read, and write enough Korean to understand and make myself understood to Korean speakers).
I was instead alluding to my experiences in parts of South-East Asia (e.g. Myanmar, Laos, parts of Indonesia - though obviously not Bali), as well as in parts of Eastern Europe (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldavia, Azerbaijan).
Fantasy (btw, welcome back),
bluejives (at #24) retorted to doggbert’s typically presumptuous remarks (#17) about kyopos. You then jumped on bluejives retort to doggbert. So one negative negative generalization about one group is okay but not about another? I am not saying you were wrong….just you often seem incredibly one-sided. Doggbert is allowed to make his generalizations with not a word from you, but if a kyopo gives back he is given a rebuke by you. Why? And don’t tell me again about how some yu-hak-saeng once put a knife to your throat as justification for your responses.
What presumption, jk? I can point out baduk’s typical hypocrisy/racism quite easily. Funny that you cannot see it as such, but I suppose that’s par for the course.
Par for the course? This coming from a guy who participated in this exchange below??? (I don’t care if you and I DO agree that Cheney and Bush are full of sh*t and have been abusing their power, your response below was asinine to say the least)>
railway wrote:
“I have zero problems with our actions in Iraq, I just regret that we did not take Baghdad the first go-around. George and Dick should be applauded for doing G-d’s work”
dogbert responded:
Of course you don’t; you’re Jewish.
Neff:
I can’t claim to have spoke with any of his fellow soldiers in his unit, but to me the quote:
” Korean women are perfect man’s mates. I’m friends with several who are much more beautiful than any girlfriend I had in the States and that’s for damn sure. Besides attractive, they’re hard working, they live simply. They know how to treat their man.”
Sounds like a guy with an obsession with a Korean girl to me.
Oh, sorry to say, is Dogbertt a Jew?
Jew, who is greedy, stingy, quick to calculation cold-blooded in Shakespeare, Dikens, Jola, Dostoevskii, Poe, and so many hard to list.
Pepe,
I see you’ve read and enjoyed Lee Won-bok’s comic books. I take it you’ve had some sort of negative interactions with the ‘wall of Jews’. Thankfully, all the writers you mentioned are dead, and nowadays we try to avoid stereotyping.
Fantasy,
Thanks for your comments. I should have elaborated more when I made my comments. By saying ’some forms of prejudices’ I was intending to say any type of prejudice whether it be racial, sexual, language-based, appearance-based, age-based, etc.
I do agree with you that some people may indeed be free of any form of racial prejudice. But, in my opinion, I don’t believe any adult individual is fully free of any form of prejudice whether it be racial, sexual, language-based, etc.
Robert Neff,
Thanks for the clarifications in #32. In reading your article about Abshier, I saw some things for the first time, including the part about the heart attack and the Thai wife.
I look forward to more from you on the defectors. I recently finished Michael Harrold’s piece-of-shit book Comrades and Strangers, and there were a couple of references to the American defectors in there, but no significant information. In Harrold’s case, I think all those years of working on propaganda content permanently damaged his writing style. (What can I use for my own excuse?)
On #39
Hey….maybe a couple hundred years from now, expats and other foreigners won’t care much about the antisemiticism in these comic books either…
until then….
60 minutes did a piece on Dresnok using footage from the documentary Crossing The Line. It’s been youtubed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZtkHUkZ8Rg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jBPKkhSzJs
A well written article. Went down like fine Hennessey, as compared to the raw soju of the foreigner’s column from the Korea Times (the one linked just below on the main page).
For what it’s worth, in the 1980’s I had occasion to take note of some of the research results documenting the leading causes of peacetime non-duty related causes of death for young Army soldiers. As you might guess, the leading cause was accidents driving or riding in privately owned vehicles (POV’s). As a very rough approximation, about half of these involved alcohol.
The second leading cause of such deaths? You might not quite so readily guess that it was accidents involving water (meaning swimming, usually in non-authorized non-supervised locations). Again, roughly half involved alcohol.
Which is why, when you look at the listings of “off-limits” locations for soldiers, at any duty location worldwide, you’ll commonly find one or more old quarries (deep ones filled with water). There’s good reason for it, as the archives of the Army safety folks are filled with accident reports of over-confident young guys who went into cold water and suddenly and catastrophically found it was too much for them. Sometimes there will be multiple deaths, if another picnicer jumps in to try to save the one in trouble.
My point is that the NorK account of how White died may in fact be a credible one. He didn’t necessarily stop being young and foolish in all other respects, just because he may have learned a hard lesson from “crossing over”. And I can’t see offhand why it would have benefited his Northern handlers to quietly do away with him; he was only a young junior EM, and he could have been easily kept under close supervision while they waited for further opportunities to exploit him for propaganda value.
It’s not as though they had a surplus of US GI defectors up there.
Regarding #39, it sounds like a person posing as a native Korean or a native Korean intentionally trying to provoke people here. Don’t take him any more seriously than a native Korean should take Dogbert’s generalizing comments about Koreans seriously.
*Sigh* Not to be redundant, but not ALL Koreans talk or think this way.
kpmsprtd and Paul H.
Thanks for the compliments. I fully agree with the accident rate that Paul mentioned. I do remember that while I was in the military that all swimming sites - including the beaches at Pusan, Kangnung and I am sure the West Coast - were all off-limits…..the only places that you could swim “legally” was at the base swimming pool.
As to doing away with PFC White - I can’t say if they did away with him, but I think there are a lot of strange coincidences associated with his death. The fact that he was out drinking red wine…perhaps but doesn’t seem likely. But, Dresnok, when he was interviewed clearly had no problem getting alcohol - not bad stuff too if I remember from the video - so I guess it was possible.
As for further uses. I don’t remember any of the defectors being used for propaganda purposes after the initial spat of flyers along the Z…..
I still find it very strange that he apparently was not known by the other defectors despite them having met (and in some cases married) abduction victims.
I think out of all the defectors the most elusive and interesting has to be the Korean-American that defected to East Germany and then to North Korea in the late 1970s - there is almost nothing (I could only find his name) on him.
Next project - #2 defector and then some of the South Korean defectors…
JK, I’m merely being consistent. I realize this may be a foreign concept to you.
Just as I oppose the Robert Kims, I also oppose the Jonathan Pollards. People who are so superstitious as to believe that they will be struck dead if they print the “o” in G”o”d have no business claiming that the rape and murder of Iraqis is “G-d’s work”. Now, kindly STFU. The U.S. is not enriched by your presence, no matter how much you (typically) glorify yourself, your sense of superiority as an ethnic Korean, your sexual conquests, etc.
@●~*: No.
Aww….poor dogbertt….he get mad!
So because of Robert Kim, ALL Korean-Americans are suspect. And because of Jonathon Pollard all JEWS are suspect. usinkorea, got any comments about a fellow Western expat of yours making a negative implication about Jews? After all, you were quick to comment about the Korean writer’s (along with other Koreans). So I’m sure you could do the same after dogbert’s remark (and other Western expats).
The thing is though, jk, not all white folk think the same. In fact, we are more known for our disparity of views/opinions.
Perhaps a hard concept for you to grasp.
BTW, jk, I’m not mad, but the posts on your blog do show a level of immaturity and self-aggrandizement typical of 1.5/2.0 kyopo males.
JK wrote:
“Regarding #39, it sounds like a person posing as a native Korean or a native Korean intentionally trying to provoke people here. “
Dot-squiggle-asterisk is a Korean woman. She has posted numerous comments in Korean and in English as a Second Language on other threads.
“The thing is though, jk, not all white folk think the same. In fact, we are more known for our disparity of views/opinions.”
But all kyopos and Jews do, huh? So you think like Timothy McVeigh did, dogbert?
And you call ME immature. You’re pathetic, dogbert.
#41
Hello El Canguro,
sorry for answering only now, more than two days late.
“I do agree with you that some people may indeed be free of any form of racial prejudice. But, in my opinion, I don’t believe any adult individual is fully free of any form of prejudice whether it be racial, sexual, language-based, etc.”
Yes, I can whole-heartedly subscribe to that - thanks for the clarification.
Indeed, it seems to be an integral part of human nature not to be able to entirely rid oneself from prejudice or bias against groups of which oneself is not part. I, as a German national (however a German of Colour), am, however, convinced that race plays only a minor part here - in my experience the other factors you mention carry much more weight and really do matter.
E.g. I find it extremely difficult to respect gays. I know full well that this attitude of mine is unjustifiable and could, with good reason, be regarded as immoral, but I simply cannot bring it over myself to talk to gays in the same way as I do to other men - I clearly feel repulsed by almost all their utterings and actions, full stop. I know, I should repent, but I simply cannot…
BTW:
I enjoyed my sojourn over there on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean - really very interestin indeed !
Gravatar test
It is a pity that nobody caught on to my calculated (if maybe tasteless) rant regarding gays which was supposed to be satirical and provocative.
So I feel I have to elaborate my argument further:
What I really want to say is this:
People are not all the same, that much is clear. They come in a whole lot of different categories:
male / female / transgender
heterosexuals / homosexuals / asexuals
Christians / Muslims / Buddhists / Hinduists / Shamanists / Atheists …
All these differences do indeed matter.
One distinction, however, is completely irrelevant.
It is called “race”.
Despite what some misguided people want to convince you off, this difference is simply not relevant. What kind of useful information am I supposed to gather that someone is Caucasian, Asian, Black…
And btw “Hispanic”, yes that is a category which makes sense - from this description I can gather the useful piece of information that someone is good at Spanish. And this is something which is of relevance…
In “The Great Gyopo Debate” of last month
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/.....po-debate/
a commenter from Sweden calling himself “Maru” said the following (original spelling) at #35:
Posted January 19, 2007 at 11:13 am | Permalink
“How come America is so segregated still? Whites hang out with whites, blacks with blacks, asians with asians… etc
Can someone please explain this to a none American? I don’t understand because when I meet Americans regardless of race they are very similar to each other. For example most Korean-Americans (that I have met) are more similar to African-Americans, White Americans and other Americans than they are to Koreans from Korea… I have experience with for example African-Americans, Irish-Americans and so on…”
Nobody gave “Maru” (of whom I have never heard otherwise, neither before nor afterwards) any answer. I am asking myself why not.
You know, I have just come back from the US two days ago after staying there for a couple of months (therefore the change of my flag). I enjoyed my sojourn over there - really very interesting indeed! But, for me, just as for “Maru the Swede” there are still many things I do not understand…
And btw, Baduk recently told us about his difficulties in school after his arrival in the US (sorry, I cannot find the exact place where talked about this). He puts these difficulties down to “racism”.
Now, I certainly can sympathise with Baduk. Because I have been there myself, I mean I once was in a comparable situation. I happen to be a dark-skinned German, but I am in any event a German, and thus I spoke nothing but German when my (adoptive) father accepted a posting as a sales engineer for a German company in Hong Kong back in 1974 when I was 9 years old.
Now the language of the people of HK is Cantonese, a southern Chinese dialect. I did not understand a word of what people in the street were saying.
But then, in the International School, the language of instruction was English. I did not understand a word of what the teachers were saying.
Many of my classmates, however, were from French-speaking countries and spoke French to one another. I did not understand a word of what my classmates were saying.
So, I was completely lost and thoroughly disenchanted. But was “racism” the reason for my plight. No, of course not. Baduk, please take note…
Baduk, please read my criticism in connection with my remarks over here:
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/.....ment-72370
#35
I sometimes fee that Sonagi were a Korean. Call me Big-dot-squiggle-asterisk or just ‘bomb’.
The name JK makes me think of this http://img412.imageshack.us/im.....b74bo0.jpg
JK is another acronym of 조까(form 좆 까다.) -_-;
To Jonath,
But, people still read those works of the dead; they are still alive with their works. We must eradicate all those works, holding down our tears.
Oh, god.
It makes me think of ……….. eat my black bla bla. Oh, so sorry to who will google.
Big-dot-squiggle-asterisk or just ‘bomb’,
could you please try to be a little bit more specific as to the message of your comment above. I am trying to decipher what you want to tell us (or specifically to Zonath), but frankly, I do not get your message…
Absolutely no offence intended, merely an honest question asked.
Color me puzzled, as well. First ’she’ slanders Jews and cites a bunch of (thankfully) dead authors, and then ’she’s’ back saying that we should eradicate their works? I’m not even entirely certain what all this has to do with defectors to North Korea in the first place. It would be nice if ’she’ spelled my name correctly though, even though I can understand that the ‘Z’ key is a little difficult to find (and to be fair, I call ‘her’ Pepe because I can’t find the ‘●’ key on my keyboard.)
This is the reason I don’t normally post on Marmot’s. I have always admired Marmot - who I personally know - but I do not agree with the common hijacking of every link or article on his blog by people who wish to projec their own - often narrow and biased - views of the world…Stay to the general topic…if you wish to open up with your own racist and prejudiced comments…start another link…Marmot will surely grant it. It weakens the web/site when you diverse into your own flame-wars with each other which generally are nothing more than juvenile race-wars///grow up and contribute to the web instead of perpetuating immaturity…
As I used to wish a certain member of the net/… “Wishing you the best in your own little world”
Mr. Zonath,
I DIDN’T slander Jews. I have no reason to slander Jews, and I DIDN’T. It has still evidence for me. Read my comment again. I didn’t, and If someone did, it’s the writers.
I don’t remember, but a few above had been saying about Jews; I was a late-comer.
Omission occurred.
——–
“How come America is so segregated still? Whites hang out with whites, blacks with blacks, asians with asians… etc.
Oh, god.
It makes me think of ……….. eat my black bla bla. Oh, so sorry to who will google.
How do you get your Gravatar to work?
“How come America is so segregated still? Whites hang out with whites, blacks with blacks, asians with asians… etc.” (Maru the Swede)
Oh, god.
It makes me think of ……….. eat my black bla bla. Oh, so sorry to who will google.
I did not really expect THAT kind of reaction…
Aaah, sorry, now, it seems as if I had said that - I was merely quoting “big-dot-squiggle-asterisk or just ‘bomb’”.
Anyway, “big-dot-squiggle-asterisk or just ‘bomb’”, would you care to elaborate your comment so as to bring some sense into it ?
I was at GP Oulette the day PFC White took his walk on an unrelated mission. I witnessed his squad saluting the North Koreans. There is no evidence that NK was waiting for him as it took him 90+/- minutes to walk the 1500 meters. I talked with one of his squadmates who said he had White in his gunsights for 20+ minutes. The command exercised great restraint in not firing on him. This was probably due to the difficulty in obtaining a command decision at 2am. So, do nothing was the best course of action.
I don’t know why he walked. I can only state that Korea was a stressful environment for American GI’s. I can only speculate that the combination of live ammunition, culture shock, relative newness in country, nightly harrassing loudspeakers, the confinement of DMZ duty and a lack of personal friends contributed to his decision.
I call BS to the NK agent theory. As an E-3 and new guy in country, he had limited access to the ‘ville’ from Camp Howze. Even if he did befriend a few business girls, it was easy to confuse motives for their current professional status. Most disturbing though, are your six references to the word defection in one tape. “In South Korean newspapers you read all the time of North Koreans who defect south,” but then he noted ominously in a disembodied voice, “But it’s not all one-way traffic.” Hard to tell how far out of context these quotes came as it was common to discuss defections in passing conversations. And, I never heard of Bongilchon.
I recall seeing a propaganda leaflet with White, 3 Korean women and one of the Kim’s enjoying a leisurely ride in a vintage motorboat on North Korea’s recreational lake. And, I heard he died in a mine accident shortly after I left Korea.
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[...] Robert Neff from the Marmot’s Hole has posted an interesting article in the Asia Times about the 1982 defection of PFC Joseph White to North Korea. PFC White would remain in North Korea for only three more years until he supposedly died while drowning in a river. The reason for PFC White’s defection has been a matter of controversy for years. [...]