crossing the line (11. 768)

In contrast and correspondence with the previous post, also on this day the following year, in 1962, twenty-one year old US army private first class Joe Dresnok (제임스 조새프 드레스녹), feeling hopeless, recovering from a recent divorce, and facing a court-martial for forging his commanding sergeant’s signature for passes to leave the army base at night, dashed across the minefield of the Demilitarised Zone into North Korean territory. The defector was apprehended instantly and taken to Pyongyang for interrogation, eventually resolved to settle there. Dresnok along with six other American service members taught English and participated in propaganda campaigns to entice more US soldiers at the border to join them. Praising Dear Leader and vowing to never return to the West, Dresnok became a celebrity, cast in several domestic films as an American villain—including a very popular 1978 mini-series called Nameless Heroes (along with fellow defector Charles Robert Jenkins as Dr Kelton, the fictional mastermind behind the peninsular conflict) in which he played the role of lieutenant colonel Arthur Cockstud, commander of a prisoner of war camp, with most North Koreans calling him “Arthur” after his character.  Dresnok died of a stroke in November 2016, confirmed by his sons the following year in an interview on state-run television.