Charles Robert Jenkins was an American soldier whose desertion to North Korea in 1965 led to nearly four decades of captivity. Fearing combat duty in the Vietnam War, Jenkins abandoned his military patrol and crossed the Korean Demilitarized Zone, expecting to be transferred to the Soviet Union and eventually returned to the United States. Instead, he was detained by North Korean authorities for over thirty-nine years. During his long imprisonment, Jenkins endured torture, was forced to appear in state propaganda films, and was compelled to marry Hitomi Soga, a Japanese national who had been abducted by North Korean agents. Following a diplomatic thaw between Japan and North Korea, Jenkins was permitted to leave the country in 2004. Upon arriving in Japan, Jenkins surrendered to U.S. military authorities, underwent a court-martial, and served a brief sentence. He spent the remainder of his life living on Sado Island in Japan, where he worked at a local museum, became a public figure, and authored a memoir detailing his decades of captivity.
