It was an act so unthinkably crazy, at least one eyewitness thought it was a social media stunt.
When U.S. Army Pvt. Travis King left a South Korean tour group Tuesday and darted toward North Korean territory, Sarah Leslie told The Associated Press, “I assumed initially he had a mate filming him in some kind of really stupid prank or stunt, like a TikTok, the most stupid thing you could do.”
However, it soon became apparent that no one was laughing.
“I heard one of the soldiers shout, ‘Get that guy,’” she said.
King, 23, a cavalry scout with the 1st Armored Division, recently had been released from a South Korean prison, where he had been locked up for more than a month on an assault charge.
A military escort had delivered him to Incheon International Airport near Seoul, NBC News reported, but instead of boarding his flight to face further disciplinary action in the U.S., he joined the group headed for the “truce village” of Panmunjom 90 minutes away, in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.
It was not known how King was able to join the group, which Leslie said requires members to submit their passports and get preapproved permits, the AP reported.
The young man was traveling alone and didn’t appear to interact with anybody on the tour, she told the news service.
She saw him buy a DMZ hat in the gift shop.
As the group was waiting to depart, Leslie said, she saw King running “really fast.”
He quickly disappeared from sight after sprinting down a narrow passageway between two buildings, she said.
The remaining tourists were taken into a building and questioned.
“People couldn’t really quite believe what had happened,” Leslie said. “Quite a few were really shocked. Once we got on the bus and got out of there we were all kind of staring at each other.”
Another woman on the tour wrote about the incident in a Facebook post, according to NK News.
“To our right, we hear a loud HA-HA-HA and one guy from OUR GROUP that has been with us all day- runs in between two of the buildings and over to the other side!!” Swede Mikaela Johansson said in the post.
“It took everybody a second to react and grasp what had actually happened, then we were ordered into and through Freedom House and running back to our military bus.”
CBS News quoted former North Korean diplomat Thae Yong-ho, who defected to South Korea, as saying the incident might have some propaganda potential for dictator Kim Jong Un, but previous instances of defections have been a headache for the Hermit Kingdom.
“U.S. soldiers who have crossed/defected to North Korea are inevitably a nuisance because the cost-effectiveness is low in the long run,” Thae said.
“A professional security and monitoring team had to be set up … an interpreter, and a private vehicle, driver, and lodging had to be arranged.”
CBS News speculated on possible ways King could be made useful to North Korea. “One expert suggested he could be useful as an English teacher, or perhaps as a copywriter for the English versions of state media.”
“Back in the 1960s after the Korean War, some U.S. military defectors ended up playing the roles of Ugly Capitalist American Villains in North Korean movies,” the report said.
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