Joseph Dresnok was a Private in the US Army stationed along the Korean DMZ. He quickly became depressed and developed one hell of an addiction to booze and sex workers. After getting in trouble one too many times and fearing he would get a courts martial, he took off running across the DMZ towards North Korea.
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Sources: "Crossing the Line" BBC 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd2dCk3N8cE
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/08/21/a-u-s-soldier-who-defected-to-north-korea-in-1962-has-died-his-pyongyang-born-sons-say/
Jenkins Robert. The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea. 2007.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/29/meet-the-four-americans-who-defected-to-north-korea-in-the-1960s/
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