The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea

• Author: Clay A. Compton
• Position: Judge Advocate, U.S. Army
• Pages: 122-129

122 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 210

THE RELUCTANT COMMUNIST: MY DESERTION, COURT-

MARTIAL, AND FORTY-YEAR IMPRISONMENT IN NORTH

KOREA1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR CLAY A. COMPTON*

I did not understand that the country I was seeking

temporary refuge in was literally a giant, demented

prison; once someone goes there, they almost never,

ever get out.2

I. Introduction

In The Reluctant Communist, Sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins, with

the assistance of Jim Frederick,3 recounts his desertion from the U.S.

Army and the nearly half-century of captivity he spent in the most

secretive, totalitarian, and militarized state in the world.4 Jenkins weaves

a compelling story of desperation, survival, and regret. Many

fundamental truths of life are to be found throughout this story, most

* Judge Advocate, U.S. Army. Student, 60th Judge Advocate Officer Graduate Course,

The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, U.S. Army, Charlottesville,

Virginia.

1 CHARLES ROBERT JENKINS WITH JIM FREDERICK, THE RELUCTANT COMMUNIST: MY

DESERTION, COURT-MARTIAL, AND FORTY-YEAR IMPRISONMENT IN NORTH KOREA (2008).

2 Id. at 21.

3 Jim Frederick is the Managing Editor of Time.com and the author of Black Hearts: One

Platoon’s Descent into Madness in Iraq’s Triangle of Death (2010). He served as Time’s

Senior Editor in London from August 2006 to January 2008. Before that, he worked as

Time’s Tokyo Bureau Chief for four years. It is during his time in Tokyo that he met

Jenkins and co-authored The Reluctant Communist. While Frederick is listed as a co-

author of the book, based on the prose from the Prelude onward, it is highly likely that

Frederick wrote the Foreword, but Mr. Jenkins was the primary author for the remainder

of the book. JIM FREDERICK, http://jimfrederick.com/Site/about.html (last visited Apr. 16,

2012).

4 See U.S. DEP’T OF STATE (Apr. 29, 2011), http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2792.htm#

(The North Korean military accounts for 20% of men between the ages of seventeen and

fifty-four, for a total of 1.2 million people. Military spending accounts for a quarter of the

nation’s gross national product. Due to North Korea’s extreme isolationism, much of

what is known about the state is based upon estimates from the U.S. Central Intelligence

Agency.). See also U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, http://www.travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis

/cis_988.html (last visited Apr. 16, 2012) (The United States does not have an embassy or

consulate in North Korea and continues to strongly advise against travel to North Korea.).

See generally North Korea Country Profile, BBC NEWS http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-

pacific/country_profiles/1131421.stm (last visited Apr. 16, 2012).