WELDON, N.C. (AP) — Army deserter Charles Jenkins said Monday he regrets leaving his post for North Korea, where he spent nearly 40 years, and called the communist country's dictator, Kim Jong Il, "an evil man."
At his sister's home here, Jenkins, 65, said he lived under harsh conditions in North Korea and never expected to see his mother again. He was reunited with his 91-year-old mother, Pattie, last week.
Jenkins was a 24-year-old sergeant in 1965 when he left the squad he was leading on patrol in the Demilitarized Zone and defected to North Korea.
"I let my soldiers down. I let the U.S. Army down. I let the government down, and I made it very difficult for my family in the United States to live," Jenkins said in a story posted on The News & Observer of Raleigh's Web site.