North Korea says Travis King wants refuge from mistreatment, racism in US

From the linked article:

King, who joined the U.S. Army in January 2021, faced two allegations of assault in South Korea, and eventually pleaded guilty to one instance of assault and destroying public property for damaging a police car during a profanity-laced tirade against Koreans, according to court documents. He was due to face more disciplinary measures when he arrived back in the United States.

Weird take. Plenty of people join the military because it's their best immediate option career wise. As for the military not wanting you if you're too smart - they try to recruit college educated people all the time and the higher you score on their exams the better. The US military is huge and diverse, I'm not sure I understand the point you're making.

Or more accurately, the military wouldn’t want you if you are too smart.

You're mixed up, that's US police, not US military.

this is the stupidest shit i've read in a while. i've known a current marine officer and a former army officer who both have law degrees.

lol what. You literally need to pass a test to join the military at all. And it's a pen-and-ink test with science, math and physics problems. Not a "can you follow commands" test.

Obeying a chain of command does not mean you have to be dumb. As a matter of fact, it is every person's job in the military to report unlawful orders and not follow orders blindly.

Additionally, the entire command structure in most American branches is setup for each unit to operate somewhat independently. As an example, a general or admiral says: "I want those 10sq miles flattened by tomorrow and here is all the equipment it should take to do it." Every division, unit or whatever, figures out how to do it. If they have problems, they can reassess the situation on the ground and report back up that a strategy is or is not working. Units on the ground can coordinate with other units to ensure a smooth attack.

In Russia, the chain of command doesn't work like that. The generals will tell units what to do, and that is that: One unit attack from the east, the other from the west and hopefully they don't start shooting at each other.

(I over-simplified a ton, but you get the idea.)

Also, the military absolutely wants you if you are too smart. The problem is, those smart people can get 20x the pay with half the shit in the private sector.

When I was in the Navy, two of my five years were spent in school learning electronics, radios and computers. (I slept through IT school since I could have probably taught the classes anyway.)

Go take the asvab, let us know how it goes, and what jobs are available with different scores.

I would put it another way. The military had a great number of members who are very smart and also very dumb. Some are going to make incredibly dumb decisions.

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This used to happen occasionally during the cold war. US/NATO defecting to the USSR didn’t happen often, but it did happen occasionally.

You’ve already gotten read on that take on the military, so I’m not going to bother with that. I will say that it seems like this young person has some mental and behavioral issues, given his rank at his age and his disciplinary history. I would think he’s not someone who tends to make sound judgments or think things through.

In general, the military tries to actively avoid people with these kinds of issues, and will generally not reward this kind of behavior when it comes up. There are a lot of things you can point a finger at the military about with regard to behavior toward civilians or abuse within the ranks, but in this case it looks to me like things were more or less working, to the point that he decided to run away and join the circus.

His family has been suggesting the US find some way to get him back.