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I just watched a show called "Crossing the Line". It's told by an ex U.S. Army soldier who defected in 1962 to North Korea and starred in anti U.S. Movies with three other U.S. defectors.
It's really some interesting viewing, especially when one of the other defectors who went to Japan to live with his wife that was kidnapped as a young woman to North Korea starts talking about his life there.
It's currently running on Net Flix.

Interesting, you almost never hear about this kind of thing.

I don't suppose a link could be made available?

I just checked Youtube and it's also there in sections:

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=qHAMAwIWciA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Line_%28documentary%29

That is about as much as I can gather.

Defecting to North Korea seems like spectacularly stupid move...

purplefood wrote:Defecting to North Korea seems like spectacularly stupid move...

There were several who were captured or kidnapped who later "defected."

Hazardous Harry wrote:Interesting, you almost never hear about this kind of thing.

I don't suppose a link could be made available?

I don't think any country would want their citizens to know their soldiers were defecting to another country.

Frazzled wrote:

purplefood wrote:Defecting to North Korea seems like spectacularly stupid move...

There were several who were captured or kidnapped who later "defected."

Does that count as defection?
Like actual defection rather than just 'defection'...

purplefood wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

purplefood wrote:Defecting to North Korea seems like spectacularly stupid move...

There were several who were captured or kidnapped who later "defected."

Does that count as defection?
Like actual defection rather than just 'defection'...

Well there's an issue whether they voluntarily defected, were brainwashed and then defected, or actually voluntarily defected.

Frazzled wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

purplefood wrote:Defecting to North Korea seems like spectacularly stupid move...

There were several who were captured or kidnapped who later "defected."

Does that count as defection?
Like actual defection rather than just 'defection'...

Well there's an issue whether they voluntarily defected, were brainwashed and then defected, or actually voluntarily defected.

I think it's a lot more unlikely to assume that every single US defector is actually brainwashed, than it is to admit that there are a couple of people who have done this willingly.

Have you been watching Homeland again, Frazz?

Hazardous Harry wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

purplefood wrote:Defecting to North Korea seems like spectacularly stupid move...

There were several who were captured or kidnapped who later "defected."

Does that count as defection?
Like actual defection rather than just 'defection'...

Well there's an issue whether they voluntarily defected, were brainwashed and then defected, or actually voluntarily defected.

I think it's a lot more unlikely to assume that every single US defector is actually brainwashed, than it is to admit that there are a couple of people who have done this willingly.

Have you been watching Homeland again, Frazz?

We're talking North Korea derp see the title of the thread derp. You been hitting the sterno again?

The guys that defected seemed to have almost the same profile in that they had a crappy life.
The first defector seemed like he had a nothing to lose type of attitude when he jumped the wire.

I was talking about this show to a friend at work who had been stationed in Korea. He told me about a deserter who was found in a river 8 months later after his jumping of the line. Apparently he had been tortured to death

Defecting to a quasi-failed state (and 'quasi' only because there is still a mockery of social cohesion) where citizens are kept in a perpetual state of immaturity, really ought to put you high on the list for the Darwin Award.

I mean... deserting to run to an area where there is no authority? I completly understand that urge, even if it's not the most healthy. Put the right backshish in the right hands, buy a tickets to the Philippines, find one of the less populated/popular atols, and your set. Why the heck NK???

Relapse
Are we still talking about American defectors? Because I still can't wrap my head around that. From what I've heard, a few South Korean did buy the communist dream, and try to defect. I've seen a documentary following a NK defector trying to adapt to life in SK, and she admitted that she often thought it would be easier to run back than to adapt to a more capitalistic world.

purplefood wrote:Defecting to North Korea seems like spectacularly stupid move...

Excellent, excellent movie, I met the director when I was in China.

The 3 or 4 defectors all went in the 50s and 60s when NK was actually more prosperous than south. All similar backgrounds too, bad upbringings, recent divorces and break ups, alcholism, I then some were drafted too.

Another documentary they did, State of Mind is really good.

It follows school kids preparing for the mass gymnastics.

@kovnik
These were in fact U.S. Soldiers that deserted in the 1960's, although there have been others as I found out from friends that were stationed in Korea in later decades.

@Kid

What were this directors impressions of these guys? The story is hugely interesting to me, and aside from the personal problems, were there any other similar factors between these deserters?

Wikipedia has biographies on each of the soldiers, randomly found myself reading them a while ago

Seems like most just succumbed to pressures from soldiering/at home rather than defecting for ideological reasons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kid_Kyoto makes a good point... NK wasn't such a fail of a place before the fall of the USSR.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kovnik Obama wrote:Defecting to a quasi-failed state (and 'quasi' only because there is still a mockery of social cohesion) where citizens are kept in a perpetual state of immaturity, really ought to put you high on the list for the Darwin Award.

I mean... deserting to run to an area where there is no authority? I completly understand that urge, even if it's not the most healthy. Put the right backshish in the right hands, buy a tickets to the Philippines, find one of the less populated/popular atols, and your set. Why the heck NK???

Relapse
Are we still talking about American defectors? Because I still can't wrap my head around that. From what I've heard, a few South Korean did buy the communist dream, and try to defect. I've seen a documentary following a NK defector trying to adapt to life in SK, and she admitted that she often thought it would be easier to run back than to adapt to a more capitalistic world.

If you're stationed on the border, it's a lot easier to just hop over the DMZ than get yourself to the Phillipines, I imagine... plus one must ask if the moves were pre-meditated or spur of the moment.