Relatives of Travis King, the US soldier who entered North Korea after a surprise border crossing from the south on Tuesday, find it hard to understand the 23-year-old’s behavior. They agree that the boy must have been overwhelmed by legal troubles and the prospect of discharge from the military upon his return to the United States for assaulting a man at a Seoul club in September. Even if that were the case, the possible explanation they find for him is that he must not have been entirely sane. “I can’t see him doing that intentionally if he was in his right mind,” his grandfather, Carl Gates, confessed to the AP agency.
His family presents him as a quiet, solitary young man who did not drink or smoke and who enjoyed reading the Bible. Growing up in Wisconsin, he enlisted in the military in 2021 and was excited to serve his country in South Korea. “He wanted to do something better,” says Gates. Those close to him don’t understand what went through his head when he decided to enter a country illegally with a long history of holding US citizens. “Travis is a good guy. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. And I can’t see him trying to hurt himself,” adds his grandfather.
Little by little, more details of his increasingly probable escape are becoming known. King was supposed to return to Fort Bliss, Texas, on Monday to face disciplinary action after serving 48 days in a prison workshop in South Korea for failing to pay a fine (about 3,500 euros) imposed on him in February for kicking and damaging a police car in Seoul, Yonhap news agency reported. This center is intended for US and foreign soldiers only.
Instead of boarding the plane, he slipped away on the grounds that he had lost his passport and managed to get out of the terminal. It is unknown how he returned to Seoul or where he spent the night. The next morning he joined a group of civilian tourists in the South Korean capital and headed for the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the two Koreas. King had apparently pre-booked the tour and been approved for him to participate, according to a US military report obtained by The Messenger website. This would suggest that his act was premeditated.
There were about 40 people and the visit should last ten hours. Around three in the afternoon, when the group was in the (DMZ), King ran towards the North Korean border, among the emblematic buildings that have separated the territories since the armistice in 1953. “He ran really fast,” Sarah Leslie, a New Zealand citizen who was in the same group, explains to the Korea Times. The woman first thought that she was an innocent.
Washington maintains that King is in the custody of the North Korean authorities. When he crossed the border he was seen getting into a North Korean guards van and driving away from the area, according to the army report. The Pentagon has contacted the Korean People’s Army (KPA) with no response yet. He is also looking for other lines of communication through South Korea or Sweden (whose embassy in the North Korean capital handles US consular affairs).
