This is an interesting legal question that has just come up with the recent arrest of a Korean Army soldier as a US Army deserter:
A South Korean soldier may be a U.S. military deserter after he left his U.S. base and joined the South Korean army, apparently to avoid a tour of duty in Iraq, the defense ministry in Seoul said on Thursday.
The South Korean army private second class, whose identity was given only as Kim, joined the U.S. military in 2003 to become a permanent U.S. citizen on condition that he would serve in Iraq, a ministry official said.
In 2005, he visited his home country on leave just before his U.S. unit was to be deployed to Iraq and never went back, the South Korean defense ministry official.
Instead, as he still held a South Korean passport, he was called up by the South Korean military and began serving late last year due to mandatory military enlistment.
Kim’s trouble with the U.S. military came to the surface when he went to the U.S. army headquarters in Seoul this month hoping to clear his name but was arrested on the spot.
I think the soldier in question will probably just receive a bad conduct discharge as I have seen other soldiers who have deserted in the last few years receive as well, but I’m no JAG so maybe some of you Army lawyers out there have a better understanding of what will happen to this soldier.Â
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11:04 am on March 16th, 2007 1
GI,
I hope this situation does not become another Robert Kim’s case for rest of us Korean-Americans who are proudly serving in the US military and US Government.
Only similar case that I can think of was; A dual citizen US Army Reserve Jewish-American officer who lost his security clearance when his security investigator found out that he served in IDF when he was studying in Israel during same time when he was a member of US Army Reserve.
http://www.public-action.com/911/rescue/obq-wnd-04-24-2002/index.html
Maybe pledging to one master should be a class during Basic Training or OBC. Once you are US Military personnel, then you can not serve other countries’ military until you are fully out of the service.
5:43 pm on March 31st, 2007 2
[...] weird deserter case involving a Korean national who enlisted in the US Army and then deserted and then was drafted [...]
11:20 am on April 10th, 2007 3