During the Cold War, an American soldier named
James Joseph Dresnok was stationed on the
Demilitarized Zone between North and South
Korea. One day, he decided to simply walk
over the line to the North. He was “defecting”;
betraying his country and choosing to start
a new life in an enemy land that he knew nothing
about.
For decades, the United States government
tried to sweep this incident under the rug,
because they were truly embarrassed. Likewise,
North Korea denied having American defectors
living in their country. It wasn’t until
the 2000’s that the truth was revealed to
the public. Some say that Dresnok was brainwashed
into loving North Korea. Others say that he
has simply seen the light. So- why did Dresnok
defect? And exactly what happened to him beyond
those mysterious borders?
Early Life
Many people say that the United States is
home of the “American Dream”. For many,
it truly is a place with opportunities unlike
anywhere else in the world. But for others,
it’s more like a nightmare. James Joseph
Dresnok was born on November 24th, 1941 and
raised in Richmond, Virginia. His parents
were poor, and constantly fighting with one
another over money. One day, Dresnok’s mother
had enough with her husband, and she decided
to escape the relationship. James remembered
that she packed his clothes, and took him
and his brother in the car. They began to
drive for hours at a time, until it was time
to sleep in the back of the car.
The family had essentially become homeless.
The boys were not attending school, of course,
and their mother continued to wander from
place to place, earning money by selling herself
in the streets. At night, she went drinking
in the bars, leaving James and his brother
in the car alone. Eventually, her family tracked
them down once they had reached Atlanta, Georgia.
Their mother lost custody of the children.
But James’ father did not want to be responsible
for them at all, so he sent his sons to go
live with relatives.
James went to live with an aunt, and his brother
went to live with an uncle. His aunt made
it clear to him that she was annoyed to be
forced to take on the responsibility of raising
her brother’s child, and she wanted him
gone as soon as possible. Of course, it was
impossible for him to feel welcome in that
home, so he ran away all the time. Eventually,
his aunt got fed up with James, and took him
back to his father’s house.
By the time he returned, his father had already
found a second wife. However, James’ brother
was already home, and his father lied to his
new wife, saying that he only had one son.
The revelation that there was now another
mouth to feed made his new step-mother very
angry, and they got into a heated argument.
The next morning, his father drove James to
a retirement home a few towns away from where
they lived. He claimed that they were going
to visit an elderly relative. Once they arrived,
his father asked him to wait in the reception
area. He went back out to his car, and never
came back.
James was now an orphan with nowhere to go.
Instead of asking the nurses or the elderly
retirees for help, he left the building, and
stole a $20 bill. Then, he found an unattended
bicycle, which he stole, and tried to run
away. But he was caught by the police and
they claimed that he was a juvenile delinquent,
and he was almost sent to a detention center.
However, he was allowed to live at the Overstreet
Children’s Home in Glen Allen, Virginia,
which was run by a pastor C.T. Overstreet.
the kids nicknamed “Big Papa.” He loved
spending time there, and finally felt as though
he was welcomed into a surrogate family. James
made friends with some of the other orphans,
including a boy named Sunny Jeter, who later
described James Dresnok; “He had absolutely
nothing. He had nothing to call his own, except
the clothes that were on his back.”
Growing Up
For children who are born in James Dresnok’s
situation, there are very few work opportunities.
His parents had often kept him out of school
for so long when he was young, he had very
hard time catching up to his peers. During
an interview years later, he claimed that
he was illiterate, though it may have been
an exaggeration. He enlisted in the US army
at 17 years old, because it was the best chance
for him to have any kind of a career or learn
life skills.
He believed that by joining the army, he would
have more freedom to travel the world and
have options in his career. But unfortunately,
he felt that it was the exact opposite. The
army had strict rules and regulations. They
controlled where he would be stationed, and
for how long. Drill sergeants were yelling
at him constantly, and he realized that what
he actually wanted was a normal life with
a wife and children. He wanted that idea of
the perfect “American Dream”, and the
happy little family that he never got to have
as a kid.
During a short leave from the army, he went
back to Virginia. He was now 18 years old,
and married a young woman he met at church
named Cathleen Ringwood. They had only known
one another for a short period of time before
the army stationed him in West Germany for
two years. He was separated from his wife
for so long, she cheated on him when he was
away.
He received a rather cold letter from her
in the mail saying she found a new lover,
and wanted a divorce. During an interview,
Dresnok bitterly mentioned the fact that he
had so many opportunities to cheat on Cathleen
while he was stationed in Germany, and that
most soldiers hired prostitutes. But he remained
celibate for over 2 years, because he was
loyal to her.
Dresnok must have felt that all of the images
of the happy American families of the 1950’s
and 60’s was pure propaganda. If the American
Dream existed, he couldn’t find it. He returned
to Virginia just long enough to file the paperwork
for his divorce. Without anything keeping
him there, he decided to immediately re-in
list in the army for another term. He said,
“The time I left Richmond, I was fed up.
I didn’t want nothing. If I died or lived,
I didn’t care.”
Good Morning, DMZ
The Korean War had been over for more than
a decade, and yet the fighting had never stopped.
There is a 2-and-a-half-mile wide and 125-mile
long stretch of land in between North and
South Korea known as the Demilitarized Zone,
or “The DMZ” for short. In 1962, James
Dresnok was stationed at the DMZ, and he was
shocked at the fact that even in times of
peace, he very well may die defending this
border. He was incredibly depressed, and had
lost any hope for a future outside of the
army. So he decided to spend all of the money
that he earned hiring prostitutes in the South
Korean villages, and drinking. He was now
20 years old, and his days were an endless
cycle of taking orders, doing the bare minimum
effort, and letting loose as soon as he could
take time off.
One night, Dresnok wanted to go see one of
his girlfriends, but his commanding officers
would not allow him to leave whenever he felt
like it. He was so fed up with having to obey
orders all the time, that he forged his sargeant’s
signature on a pass, and snuck out to the
village at night.
The next morning, on August 15th, 1962, one
of his commanding officers, Captain Thomas
Bryan, was trying to reprimand him for sneaking
out. Dresnok snapped, “You can’t touch
me. I had a pass.” Obviously, Bryan wasn’t
stupid. He had already knew that Dresnok had
forged the signature. Captain Bryan told him
to come back to his office at 3:00PM. He planned
to file the charge sheets and have him court-martialed.
Dresnok felt as if he had absolutely no future,
especially since he had absolutely no money
to his name, and no home to go to.
In the distance, North Korea has built a city
that they call The Peace Village. They played
music, and urged South Koreans to defect so
that they could enjoy the beautiful Communist
country. From Dresnok’s perspective, it
looked far more advanced compared to South
Korea. That same day, Dresnok snuck out during
lunch break. It was still broad daylight,
and he and began walking down the road towards
North Korea. He knew that they were landmines
all around him, but he cared so little about
his own life, that he was willing to take
the risk.
Once the Americans noticed that he was leaving.
They started to shout after him to come back.
He turned around and shot into the air, which
scared everyone. They believed that he had
gone AWOL and was trying to attack them. He
continued walking quickly towards the North
Korea, and never looked back. He said, “Yes,
I was afraid...But at the time, life wasn’t
so precious.”
The North Korean soldiers were stationed on
their side of the DMZ, and from their perspective,
they saw a very tall and powerful-looking
white man coming towards them. They were all
ordered to take their battle stations, and
a group of soldiers surrounded him. They pointed
their guns and bayonets at him. It was clear
from the way they looked at him that many
of them wanted to kill him on the spot. This
was the American monster that had been warned
about. The squad commander told them all to
calm down. They blindfolded him, and took
him back to their base.
James Dresnok was interrogated, and he calmly
complied to answering all of their questions
without resistance. Since he was a private
first class, he did not know anything that
the North Koreans didn’t already know themselves.
The next morning, he awoke to a voice speaking
to him in English, “Dresnok. Dresnok. I’m
Abshier”. Still half-asleep, James probably
thought everything had been a bad dream. He
moaned, “I don’t know an Abshier.”
The man replied, “Larry Allen Abshier. You
didn’t see me in the newspapers?”
Welcome to the DPRK
It turns out that James Dresnok was not the
first American soldier who had chosen to defect
to North Korea. A young man named Larry Allen
Abshier had a similar backstory to James Dresnok,
except that he was in trouble because he was
caught smoking the wild marijuana that grew
on the North Korean border. He got fed up
with the rules, and decided to cross the border.
Another man, Jerry Wayne Parrish, defected
a few months later, in 1963.
North Korea began sending paper flyers over
the border of the DMZ, offering financial
incentives for Americans who brought them
weapons and secrets. This is what convinced
a man named Sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins.
He defected in 1965, and showed up carrying
an M14 rifle. He was given an award and a
celebration in front of a large crowd. The
government tried to use the men as examples
that the United States and South Korea must
be an awful place to live, if these men were
willing to flee the countries. James began
to tell the North Korean people about the
dark history of American slavery, and how
so many people became homeless, despite their
hard work. Since he was so willing to participate
in their propaganda, The North Koreans asked
James Dresnok to speak over the loudspeakers
in English. He started to say that if more
American soldiers came over to North Korea,
they would be treated like kings.
But living in North Korea was not all sunshine.
It was very uncomfortable for these men to
live as the only white people in the entire
country, especially since propaganda had taught
them that Americans were evil. The four men
could not walk down the street without people
staring at them, and whispering. They were
not allowed to marry any of the North Korean
women, and they quickly realized that it would
be impossible to have a normal life. Abshier,
Parrish, and Jenkins all agreed with Dresnok
that it was time to plan their escape.
In Too Deep
In 1966, all four of the men decided that
it was time for them to leave. They visited
the Soviet embassy in Pyongyang, asking for
asylum, so that they could be transferred
to live in the USSR. Dresnok said, “We thought
because they were white people too, they would
accept. But the Russians didn’t treat us
good.” They notified the Korean government.
The men were taken back into custody.
According to Dresnok, the Koreans did not
punish them for trying to leave. In fact,
they felt guilty that they had made the four
men feel so unwelcome, and decided it was
time to try harder to educate them on how
to speak Korean, and learn the ways of their
culture. Compared to how he was treated for
his mistake in the U.S. army, he felt very
grateful for their mercy and understanding.
Keep in mind that at this time, Kim Il Sung
was actually making more economic progress
in North Korea compared to the South. Back
in South Korea, most people were still living
in extreme poverty, and worked as farmers.
Pyongyang had skyscrapers, a sports stadium,
and loads of smiling, happy people. Seeing
this spectacular city this was proof that
Communism really just may be the better choice
compared to Capitalism. Without any contact
with the outside world these men would have
no way of knowing that the United States had
been able to go to the moon, or any of the
other accomplishments that were going on in
their home country.
The men were told that it was in the best
interest of everyone if they lived separately
from average North Korean people. They had
minders who would come to them every day asking
if they needed anything, like personal servants
that would go to the supermarkets and retrieve
anything that they might need. If they wanted
to go anywhere, they would be chauffeured
directly to these places. The four men lived
everyday like it was an extended vacation.
They would read novels, go for a swim in the
river, smoke cigarettes, drink, gamble and
tell one another stories about life back in
America.
To James Dresnok, this was everything he ever
wanted. This was his definition of “freedom”.
He felt as though he was being treated like
a king. But to Sergeant Charles Jenkins, he
felt like a prisoner who had failed his first
attempt at escape, and the mission was not
complete. Since Jenkins was the highest ranking
officer among the, he began to act like their
leader. He tried to tell the other three younger
men what they should and should not do.
According to Dresnok, this made the other
two men happy. They were used to being given
orders in the army, and they probably felt
some comfort to have an older man telling
them that they would continue planning their
escape. But Dresnok didn’t like being bossed
around. He got into a fistfight with Jenkins,
and punched him until he fell on the ground.
After this incident, Abshier, Parrish, and
Jenkins started to isolate themselves from
James Dresnok.
Becoming A Celebrity
In 1972, the four men were fluent enough in
speaking Korean to have full North Korean
citizenship. They were allowed to leave their
compound and have their own apartments, food
rations, and transportation. The Great Leader’s
son, Kim Jung Il, had not yet taken his father’s
place as the new dictator. Even though such
things were forbidden to the average citizen,
Il indulged in Hollywood movies, and it was
his dream to become a film director. Of course,
if you’re the son of the dictator, you can
do whatever you want. Kim Jung Il needed someone
to play the villians- and that’s where the
American men come in.
In 1978, all four of the men starred in a
20-part drama called Unsung Heroes. James
Dresnok played a character named Arthur. Kim
Jung Il explained to his people that in order
to portray a villain effectively, an actor
needs to have a lot of patriotism for their
country. After hearing this, North Korean
people stopped thinking of these American
defectors as the enemy, and began to see them
as national heroes. Now, when he went out
in public, people began to address him as
“Arthur”, and they happily gave him free
food, drinks, and gifts.
In the 1980’s he began to teach English
classes at the University of Pyongyang. Most
of the information they had smuggled in from
the outside world about advances in science
technology were written in English, so Dresnok’s
help was actually vital to their translations.
One evening, James Dresnok went to a a restaurant
and spotted a beautiful brunette woman named
Doina Bumbea. She was the first European woman
he had seen in years, so he began to talk
to her. He didn’t waste any time asking
her out on a date. She agreed, and they ended
up getting married and having two children.
It was later revealed that Doina Bumbea may
have actually been kidnapped by the North
Korean government, and that she was planted
in this restaurant with the intentions of
setting them up together. However, James Dresnok
claimed that she was there by choice. Even
years later, in 2014, her brother, Gabriel
Bumbea demanded answers at the UN Human Rights
Council. Her family was never allowed to communicate
with her, so they never knew if she was kidnapped,
or if she chose to defect, too. She died of
lung cancer before she could ever see her
loved ones again.
Larry Allen Abshier married a Thai woman named
Anocha Panjoy. She had been working as a massage
therapist in Bangkok. Her roommates say that
one day, she left the apartment to get her
hair done at the beauty parlor, and never
came back. Panjoy’s friends and family never
knew that she had been kidnapped, and was
living in North Korea. Larry Abshier died
in 1983 from a heart attack at 40 years old.
During the 1990’s, Kim Jong Il became Dictator,
and there was a huge famine in North Korea
known as “The Arduous March”. No one is
sure just how many people died during this
time, but some estimate that it is in the
millions. The four American men were celebrities,
now, and considered members of the elite class.
So they never had to give up their food rations
or suffer like the lower class people. James
and Doina’s two sons, Theodore and James,
grew up and attended the Foreign Language
College in Pyongyang. During his interview
with the BBC, Dresnok said that if he had
stayed in the United States, he knows that
he could never afforded to send his children
to college, and he had absolutely no regrets
for defecting.
Not long after the death of his first wife,
James Dresnok went back to that same restaurant
and met his third wife. Her father was a diplomat
from the Togolese Republic, and he got a Korean
woman pregnant. As a mixed-race woman, she
was seen as undesirable for Korean men to
marry, so James Dresnok married her, and they
had a child together.
Jerry Wayne Parrish married a woman named
Sihanouk Shrietah from Lebanon, and he eventually
passed away. She was still alive to give her
testimony during a BBC documentary According
to her, she came to North Korea as a tourist,
fell in love with Parrish, got pregnant, and
decided to stay. Shrietah says she was never
kidnapped, and is happy living in North Korea.
Parrish died in 1998, when he was 54 years
old.
Later Life, and Death
James Dresnok and Charles Jenkins were the
only two American defectors left from their
original group. Even after all of those years,
the two were still at odds. Dresnok loved
life in North Korea, and Jenkins still felt
very much like a prisoner. In 1980, Jenkins
was 40 years old, and he met a 21 year old
Japanese woman named Hitomi Soga. She was
not afraid to bluntly tell him that she had
been kidnapped, and wanted to go home.
Jenkins and Soga bonded over their homesickness,
and they fell in love, and got married. They
lived in an apartment next door to Anocha
Panjoy. The two kidnapped women became very
close friends, and the three of them all secretly
grieved for their home countries. Panjoy was
eventually able to escape after marrying an
East German diplomat, and the North Korean
government agreed to let her go.
In 2002, the North Korean government gave
mercy to Hitomi Soga and several other Japanese
women who had been kidnapped, and allowed
them to go to Japan to “visit” their family.
They were supposed to return, but, obviously,
they never went back. In 2004, the Japanese
government was able to help reunite Charles
Jenkins with Hitomi Soga. He and their two
daughters were finally able to escape, and
move to Japan. Once he was free, Charles Jenkins
wrote an autobiography called To Tell The
Truth.
In his book, Jenkins claims that the North
Korean government turned James Dresnok into
their muscle, and that he beat him bloody
on at least 30 different occasions. They also
cut off the skin of all of his US army tattoos,
without using anesthetic. Even Dresnok admitted
to the tattoo part of the story, revealing
his scars during a documentary, saying that
everyone “volunteered” to have them removed.
Charles Jenkins also claimed that the government
wanted all of them to give birth to foreign
children who were loyal to North Korea so
that they could become spies.
James Dresnok continued to deny all of Jenkin’s
claims, saying that he was simply playing
up the situation in order to sell his book.
His two sons, Theodore and James, are now
full-grown men, and they have taken their
father’s place playing American villains
in North Korean films. He died in 2016, at
74 years old.
President George W. Bush was asked to make
a decision on what to do about Charles Jenkin’s
defection in the 1960’s. After hearing the
whole story, Bush decided that Jenkins would
serve just 30 days in prison, and his rank
was demoted to Private. He was granted Japanese
citizenship in 2008. Despite the fact that
they were manipulated into being together,
he and Hitomi truly did love one another,
because they stayed together for the rest
of his life. Charles Jenkins died in 2017,
at 77 years old.
Unfortunately, we may never truly know the
whole truth of what happened behind closed
doors. Do you think James Dresnok brainwashed
by the North Koreans? Or is this a situation
where two people truly could have a vastly
different view of an almost identical situation?
Let us know in the comments what you think,
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like this. Thanks for watching.
