This is U.S. army private Travis King. The U.S. military on Wednesday was still scrambling to determine what happened to him after he apparently – without authorization – crossed a heavily guarded border into North Korea.
“Someone ran close to me very fast and I thought, what is going on? I don’t think anyone who was sane would want to go to North Korea, so I assumed it was some kind of stunt.”
Sarah Leslie was on a civilian tour of the border between North and South Korea with King when he took off.
“It all happened pretty quickly. I probably only saw him running for like a few seconds and that’s all it would have taken to get across the border. And then, you know, a couple of seconds after I saw him, that’s when the soldiers shouted and started running after him.
The military said it believes King is in North Korean custody, though Pyongyang’s state media has made no mention of him. North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Sources tell Reuters King was based in South Korea and had been accused of assault and damaging a police car.
He pleaded guilty, had finished serving military detention and had been taken to the airport to return to the United States. But he then fled, and soon after ended up on the civilian border tour.
He was due to face disciplinary action by the U.S. military, though it was unclear if this was related to his earlier troubles.
The incident occurred amid newly-rising tensions: South Korean and U.S. officials held talks Tuesday on upgrading coordination in the event of a nuclear war with North Korea. While Wednesday North Korea fired two ballistic missiles which ended up in the ocean.
Read more at https://nypost.com/2023/07/19/us-soldier-travis-kings-mad-doomed-dash-to-north-korea/
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