![\"charles_jenkins\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/charles_jenkins-300x217.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nGiven recent events, it probably is a good idea to look at history for the treatment of US deserters. Deserters like Charles Jenkins, a sergeant who had the brilliant idea, while stationed in South Korea, to defect to North Korea in order to avoid anticipated service in Vietnam. His plan worked so well that he evaded service anywhere besides North Korea for 40 years. According to our friends at Business Insiders<\/a>;<\/p>\n Jenkins, who claimed he wasn\u2019t a communist sympathizer, said he defected to North Korea because he was being ordered to lead increasingly provocative patrols. He also heard his unit might deploy to Vietnam. <\/p>\n Once in the enemy\u2019s hands, Jenkins said he expected North Korea to give him to the Russians, who would in turn deliver Jenkins to America in a prisoner swap. Instead, Jenkins was brought to a house where he lived with three other U.S. military deserters \u2014 19-year-old Larry Abshier, 21-year-old James Dresnok, and 19-year-old Jerry Wayne Parrish \u2014 who had all defected separately since 1962….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n After 40 years in North Korea, he returned to Japan and turned himself in to American authorities who sentenced him to 25 days in jail and released him. According to an NBC report<\/a> in 2004;<\/p>\n Jenkins, 64, left the prison at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka and was taken by helicopter to the Camp Zama Army base, where he was to join his family for several days before moving to his wife\u2019s hometown in northern Japan.<\/p>\n \u201cForty years is a long time,\u201d a sobbing Jenkins, still in uniform, told The Associated Press after he arrived at Camp Zama. \u201cMy plan is to stay in Japan, if they will accept me. I want to go back to the United States, but only once. With my wife, I\u2019ll live in Japan, with my family.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It seems to me that these deserters all have a plan which quickly falls apart when they bump up against our enemies. I guess that’s why they’re our enemies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"