One thing seems clear: Private 2nd Class Travis King, 23, an American serviceman who appears to have defected to North Korea, never saw any interviews with Yeonmi Park nor did he read her book, “In Order to Live.”

If he had, King would have known about Park’s harrowing tale of growing up in North Korea and the unimaginable deprivation she endured. He would know that in 2007 the then-14-year-old girl and her mother willingly handed themselves over to human traffickers who smuggled them out of North Korea on foot. Park was promptly sold to a Chinese man who used the youngster for sex. She eventually escaped to Mongolia and South Korea before finally making her way to the U.S.

In an American success story, this immigrant ultimately graduated from Columbia University, became a citizen and went public. So few North Koreans ever escape from the Hermit Kingdom that hers is one of the few accounts of just how severe conditions are there.

Park’s family was always on the verge of starvation. When she came to the U.S., Park marveled that we have trash cans in our homes. North Koreans were so poor they literally produced no refuse. 

I’m also guessing King never saw the stomach-turning news accounts of Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who was accused in 2015 of stealing a propaganda poster during a tour of North Korea. He was sentenced to 15 years hard labor. Otto was sent back to the U.S. in 2017 in a vegetative state. He died several days later at the age of 22.

God only knows what those monsters did to this kid.

Americans are now prohibited from traveling to North Korea.

Defecting TO North Korea is insane. Yet that’s what this serviceman, who enlisted in 2021, apparently did yesterday as he was about to board a plane to return to America. King had been released after two months in a South Korean prison for an assault conviction. He was en route to the States to face disciplinary charges in the Army.

Dressed in plain clothes, King joined a tour group at the airport that was headed to the Military Demarcation Line that separates South and North Korea. Bystanders claim he laughed loudly and sprinted across the border into North Korea.

Once there, King vanished.

Diplomats from the U.S. and the United Nations are working the case. Good luck with that. King’s either in a rat-infested prison or briefly starring in propaganda films before being sent to a forced labor camp.

Whatever King was facing at home was a picnic compared to what he’s facing now.

The Defense Department will have to forgive some of us for not buying this bizarre story.

We’re expected to believe that King was escorted to the airport by military police but they weren’t permitted to go through security with him to make sure he got on his flight?

 Seriously?

King then jumped into an “orientation tour” of the DMZ? 

Why wasn’t a military escort with King for the entire trip? And why are tourists being bused over to gawk at one of the most heavily fortified military installations in the world?

Finally, why would anyone defect to a hellhole?

The U.S. has no diplomatic relations with North Korea. If King wants to leave, his best bet is Dennis Rodman.