Word: koreans
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...even coined a word for doing things without permission in this land of the unfree: "freedalisms." On one occasion, the four swam across a river to pilfer a bag of coal tar from a government construction site to repair their (illegal) fishing boat. "To steal something from the North Korean government is immediately punishable by death," Jenkins said during his court-martial. "I think we all secretly wished we would be caught." Another time, they stumbled upon an array of microphones in the attic of their house and blackmailed their leader (who feared he would suffer if his superiors learned...
...Despite the Americans' penchant for freedalisms, the North Koreans were, after seven years, evidently pleased with their behavior and apparent indoctrination. In 1972, the four received North Korean citizenship ("Whether we wanted it or not," says Jenkins) and were ordered to start teaching English at a military school in Pyongyang, run by the party's Reconnaissance Bureau. Jenkins taught three 90-minute classes a day, 10 to 15 days a month. There were about 30 students in each class. "They wanted us to teach them American pronunciation," he says, a prospect that seems amusing considering many Americans would have trouble...
...Politics further scrambled Jenkins' life. The school suddenly shut down, he says, just after a deadly exchange along the DMZ that became known as the Panmunjom incident. On Aug. 18, 1976, two American officers were hacked to death with axes and metal pikes by a band of North Korean border guards. The melee broke out after the North Koreans tried to stop American and South Korean soldiers from trimming tree branches that blocked the line of sight. The North Koreans expected retaliation for the killings. "They mobilized for war instantly," Jenkins says. "Everybody evacuated and joined up with their units...
...Pyongyang had designs on Jenkins beyond teaching English. Like his three colleagues, Jenkins was a prize cold-war souvenir: an American who had voluntarily wandered into North Korean hands. He was an asset and certainly more valuable alive than dead. "At some point, someone told us that Kim Il Sung said that one American was worth 100 Koreans," says Jenkins. "After that, I didn't think they would kill us without a good reason." His first experience as a propaganda tool occurred soon after he was captured, when he and his fellow deserters were profiled in a cover story...
...Within a few years, all four Americans had wives. Dresnok married a Romanian, and they had two sons. After she died, he married a half-Korean, half-Togolese woman, and they had a son. Parrish wed a Lebanese Muslim, and they had three sons. Abshier married a Thai woman, but they didn't have children. (Jenkins says Parrish and Abshier are dead. Dresnok, he says, is still living with his family in Pyongyang...