The Associated Press
Updated: 7:22 a.m. ET June 8, 2005
TOKYO - A U.S. soldier who deserted his Army unit 40 years ago and fled to North Korea is planning to visit his ailing mother in the United States soon, an official said.
It would be Charles Robert Jenkins’ first trip to the United States since he deserted in 1965.
Jenkins, 65, served 25 days in a U.S. military jail in Japan last year after a court-martial. He came to Japan in July to be with his Japanese wife, Hitomi Soga, who was kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1978 but allowed to return home in 2002.
The couple, who met in North Korea, have two daughters, who left the North for Japan with Jenkins.
"He and his family are preparing for the trip,” said Shigeru Matsuda, of the Cabinet Office team in charge of supporting Jenkins’ family and other Japanese victims of North Korean abductions. “He could leave soon.”
A visit to Rich Square, N.C.
Jenkins, aging and frail, has said he has no plans to return permanently to the United States but would like to visit his home in Rich Square, N.C., with his family.
Earlier this year, he told reporters that he wanted to see his 91-year-old mother as soon as possible. She lives in a nursing home in Roanoke Rapids, N.C.
The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo issued him a passport last month.
Jenkins deserted his unit in South Korea along the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas in January 1965. He said he had been trying to avoid serving in Vietnam.
While in the North, he was forced to teach English to military cadets and was used as a propaganda tool, playing a malevolent American in at least one film.
Jenkins now lives with Soga and his daughters in her hometown on a remote Japanese island.
