WASHINGTON — A troubled U.S. soldier who was being sent home from South Korea blended in with a group of tourists bound for the demilitarized zone where he “bolted” across the border into North Korea, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
The soldier, Pvt. 2nd Class Travis King, has been in the Army since January 2021, according to U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee.
He was not wearing handcuffs when he was escorted by military police as far as they could go — a security checkpoint at Incheon Airport, a commercial airport about an hour and a half from the DMZ that separates South Korea from the communist country, a senior administration official told NBC News.
But instead of continuing alone to the gate and flying back to the United States, King tagged along with a group that had just arrived and was heading for Panmunjom, which is the Joint Security area in the middle of the tense border area guarded by North and South Korean soldiers.
When King took off, the United Nations Command security forces that had been escorting the tour chased him but could not catch him, Pentagon officials said earlier.
The soldier had violated part of the joint security agreement and was being escorted to the airport after completing his punishment, a senior administration official said.
King, 23, was scheduled to return to Fort Bliss, Texas, before he left the airport and went across the border, a U.S. official said.
Admiral John Aquilino, the head of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, said that a U.S. Army private “made a run across the demilitarized zone in the Joint Security Area. He was picked up by the North Koreans.”
Aquilino, who was speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, said that the soldier crossed the border “willingly and unauthorized.”
Aquilino added that U.S. officials had not yet spoken with North Korean officials regarding the incident. Asked if there had been a breakdown in U.S. security, the admiral replied, “I don’t think we know enough yet to find out.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters that U.S. officials were still trying to piece together what exactly happened.
“What we do know is that one of our service members, who was on a tour, willfully and without authorization” crossed the demarcation line.
King is currently in the hands of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, Aquilino and Austin said.
The White House is also monitoring the situation, which came amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program, but has not yet commented.
This appears to be the first time a U.S. soldier has defected to North Korea in half a century. The last to do so was James Dresnok, who was being threatened with a court martial when he did it in August 1962.
Dresnok, according to his sons, was still in North Korea when he died of a stroke in 2016.
Tours of the area have been ongoing since the 1960s and are organized by private companies, while the U.N. has held its own tours for its staff.
The area is just 30 miles north of Seoul, the South Korean capital, and has huge historic importance as the place where the armistice to end the Korean War was signed in 1953.
The news of King’s apparent defection comes as the USS Kentucky, a nuclear-powered submarine, arrived at the Busan naval base in South Korea on Tuesday.
“It’s critical for the United States to demonstrate all of our national power to support our alliances,” said Aquilino, adding that the U.S. has mutual defense treaties with both Japan and South Korea. “We assure our allies and partners often and this is just one of those demonstrations.”
Andrea Mitchell, Peter Alexander, and Courtney Kube reported from Washington; Patrick Smith reported from London.
Corky Siemaszko contributed.
