James Joseph Dresnok
| James Joseph Dresnok | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1941 Richmond, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | 2016 (aged 74–75) Pyongyang, North Korea |
| Allegiance |
 United States (1958–1962) North Korea (1962–2016) |
| Service/branch |  United States Army (1958–1962) |
| Years of service | 1958–1962 (defected) |
| Rank |
 Private first class
|
| Other work | Teacher, actor, translator. |
James Joseph Dresnok (1941-2016) was an American defector to North Korea, one of six American soldiers to defect after the Korean War.
After defecting, Dresnok worked as an actor in propaganda films, some directed by Kim Jong-il, and as an English teacher in Pyongyang. He was featured on the CBS magazine program 60 Minutes on January 28, 2007, as the last United States defector alive in North Korea, and was the subject of a documentary film entitled Crossing the Line.
He called himself Joe Dresnok and was called both James Dresnok and Joe Dresnok in news reports, sometimes both in the same report.
Dresnok was born in Richmond, Virginia. His father was Joseph Dresnok I (1917–1978). His parents divorced when he was ten years old, and he was briefly raised by his father in Pennsylvania; his mother and younger brother Joseph Dresnok II never again came into contact with them. Dresnok was placed in a foster home, dropped out of high school, and joined the Army the day after his 17th birthday.
Dresnok's first military service was two years spent in West Germany. After returning to the United States and finding out that his wife had left him for another man, he reenlisted and was sent to South Korea. He was a Private First Class with a U.S. Army unit along the Korean Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea in the early 1960s. Soon after his arrival, he found himself facing a court martial for forging signatures on paperwork that gave him permission to leave the base which, ultimately, led to his going AWOL (Absent Without Leave).
Unwilling to face punishment, on August 15, 1962, while his fellow soldiers were eating lunch, he ran across a minefield in broad daylight into North Korean territory, where he was quickly apprehended by North Korean soldiers. Dresnok was taken by train to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and interrogated.
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