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Purple Heart veteran shot in action self-deports after old drug charge resurfaces: ‘Can't believe this is happening in America'
A U.S. Army veteran, awarded the Purple Heart for injuries sustained in combat, has self-deported to South Korea after being informed he could no longer remain in America under President Donald Trump 's hardline immigration policies.
Sae Joon Park, 55, a green card holder who has lived in the U.S. since the age of seven, departed on Monday following a removal order stemming from drug possession and failure to appear in court charges from over 15 years ago.
Park attributes these past offenses to years of untreated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which he developed after being wounded in action in Panama in 1989.
'I can't believe that this is happening in America,' Park told NPR in an interview before his departure. 'That blows me away, like a country that I fought for.'
Having arrived in the U.S. from South Korea in the late 1970s, Park grew up in Los Angeles. Seeking direction, he enlisted in the U.S. Army after high school.
'I wanted direction and [to] better myself and maybe help serve the country,' he explained.
At 20, he was deployed to Panama as part of the 1989 U.S. invasion to topple Manuel Noriega's regime. During a firefight, he was shot.
'I realized I was shot,' he recounted. 'So I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, I'm paralyzed.' And then thinking, 'Oh my God, I'm not just paralyzed. I'm dying right now.'' A bullet was miraculously deflected by his dog tag, saving his life.
Upon his return to the U.S., Park received the Purple Heart. While his physical wounds healed, the psychological trauma persisted.
Unaware at the time that he had PTSD, he did not seek professional help, leading him to turn to drugs to cope. "I had to find some kind of a cure for what I was going through," he told NPR.
For much of his twenties and thirties, Park struggled with a crack cocaine addiction. An arrest for drug possession and a subsequent failure to appear in court led to charges that ultimately derailed his chances of naturalization or relief from deportation.
'I just couldn't stay clean,' he admitted. 'So finally, when the judge told me, 'Don't come back into my court with the dirty urine,' which I knew I would, I got scared and I jumped bail.'
Although the U.S. offers expedited naturalization for veterans, Park was discharged before completing the required 12 months of service, and the Panama invasion was not officially recognized as a period of hostility, leaving him ineligible.
Park served three years in prison starting in 2009, during which he lost his desire for drugs. After his release, he moved to Hawaii, found work, and focused on raising his son and daughter.
Having completed his prison term, he was served with a removal order but was initially allowed to remain in the U.S. with annual check-ins with immigration officials.
However, under the Trump administration, circumstances shifted this month. During a meeting with local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in Hawaii, Park was informed he would be detained and deported unless he left voluntarily. He was given an ankle monitor and three weeks to arrange his affairs.
'People were saying, 'You took two bullets for this country. Like you're more American than most of the Americans living in America,'' he told Hawaii News Now.
After spending his final days with friends and family, including his 85-year-old mother, whom he believes he may never see again, Park booked a flight to South Korea – a country he barely remembers from his childhood. Under the watchful eyes of ICE agents at Honolulu airport, he shared tearful goodbyes with his loved ones.
Despite the profound circumstances of his departure from the country he fought for, Park remains resolute. 'Even after everything I went through, I don't regret joining the military or getting shot,' he said. 'It's part of my life, my journey. It's made me who I am today.'
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When he isn't preaching the word of God, Reverend Joo Yeong-bong is raising dogs for is not going well though. In fact, it's on the brink of becoming illegal. "Since last summer we've been trying to sell our dogs, but the traders just keep hesitating," Mr Joo, 60, tells the BBC. "Not a single one has shown up."In 2024, the South Korean government implemented a nationwide ban on the sale of dog meat for consumption. The landmark legislation, which was passed last January, gives farmers like Mr Joo until February 2027 to shutter their operations and sell off their remaining many say that isn't enough time to phase out an industry which has propped up livelihoods for generations – and that authorities still haven't come up with adequate safeguards for farmers or the estimated half a million dogs in captivity. Even those who support the ban, including experts and animal rights advocates, have flagged issues around its enforcement – including the difficulty of rehoming dogs that, having been saved from the kill floor, now face the increasingly likely threat of euthanasia. Midway through the grace period, dog farmers are finding themselves with hundreds of virtually unsellable animals, farms that can't be closed, and little means of putting food on the table."People are suffering," says Mr Joo, who is also president of the Korean Association of Edible Dogs, a group representing the industry. "We're drowning in debt, can't pay it off, and some can't even... find new work. "It's a hopeless situation." A storm of obstacles Chan-woo has 18 months to get rid of 600 that, the 33-year-old meat farmer – who we agreed to anonymise for fear of backlash – faces a penalty of up to two years in prison."Realistically, even just on my farm, I can't process the number of dogs I have in that time," he says. "At this point I've invested all of my assets [into the farm] - and yet they are not even taking the dogs."By "they", Chan-woo doesn't just mean the traders and butchers who, prior to the ban, would buy an average of half a dozen dogs per week. He's also referring to the animal rights activists and authorities who in his view, having fought so hard to outlaw the dog meat trade, have no clear plan for what to do with the leftover animals – of which there are close to 500,000, according to government estimates."They [the authorities] passed the law without any real plan, and now they're saying they can't even take the dogs." Lee Sangkyung, a campaign manager at Humane World for Animals Korea (Hwak), echoes these concerns."Although the dog meat ban has passed, both the government and civic groups are still grappling with how to rescue the remaining dogs," he says. "One area that still feels lacking is the discussion around the dogs that have been left behind."A spokesperson from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (Mafra) told the BBC that if farm owners gave up their dogs, local governments would assume ownership and manage them in them, however, has proven weight equals profit in the dog meat industry, farms tend to favour larger breeds. But in South Korea's highly urbanised society, where many people live in apartment complexes, aspiring pet owners often want the is also a social stigma associated with dogs that come from meat farms, Mr Lee explains, due to concerns of disease and trauma. The issue is further complicated by the fact that many are either pure or mixed tosa-inu, a breed that is classified as "dangerous" in South Korea and requires government approval to keep as a rescue shelters are already perfect storm of obstacles points to a perverse irony: that countless so-called rescue dogs, with nowhere else to go, now face the prospect of being euthanised. "It's just unbelievable," says Chan-woo. "Since the law was made according to the demands of these groups, I assumed they had also worked out a solution for the dogs - like they would take responsibility for them. But now I hear that even the animal rights groups say euthanasia is the only option."Cho Hee-kyung, head of the Korean Animal Welfare Association, conceded in September 2024 that while rights groups would try to rescue as many animals as possible, there would "be dogs left over"."If remaining dogs become 'lost and abandoned animals' then it's heartbreaking but they will be euthanised," she government sought to temper these concerns weeks later, saying that euthanising animals was "certainly" not part of their plan. More recently, Mafra told the BBC it was investing about 6bn Korean won ($4.3m; £3.2m) annually to expand animal shelters and support private facilities, and would offer up to 600,000 Korean won per dog ($450; £324) to farmers who shut their businesses early. But Chun Myung-Sun, director of the Office of Veterinary Medical Education at Seoul National University, agrees that the government's broader plan for leftover dogs is largely lacking."There needs to be a concrete discussion about how to 'dispose' of the dogs," she says."Both adoption and euthanasia should be on the table. [But] if we've gone to the effort of rescuing dogs from cruel slaughter only to euthanise them, it's understandable that people would feel heartbroken and angry." A livelihood unravels Some have looked for solutions further afield, sending the animals overseas to more willing adopters in countries like Canada, United Kingdom and the United 2023, a team from Hwak rescued some 200 dogs from a farm in Asan city – all of which have since been sent to Canada and the former owner of that farm, 74-year-old Yang Jong-tae, told the BBC that as he watched the rescuers loading his dogs into their trucks, he was astonished by the level of compassion they showed."When I saw how they handled the animals - like they were handling people, so gently and lovingly - it really moved me," he said."We don't treat them like that. For us, raising dogs was just a way to make a living. But those people from the animal group treated the dogs like they were individuals with dignity, and that really touched my heart." 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About 7% said they would keep eating it up until February 2027, and about 3.3% said they would continue after the ban came into full as of June 2025, 623 of South Korea's 1,537 dog farms had closed."As society and culture have evolved, South Korean society has now made the decision to stop producing dog meat," Ms Chun says. And yet for many it remains the cornerstone of an industry on which they've built their member of the dog meat trade the BBC spoke to expressed uncertainty about how they would support themselves now that their longtime livelihood has been deemed say they have resigned themselves to lives of poverty, noting that they were born during the Korean War and knew how to live hungry. Others suggested that the trade could go agree, however, that for younger farmers the crackdown is particularly worrying."Young people in this industry are really facing a bleak reality," Mr Joo says. "Since they can't sell the dogs, they can't shut down quickly either. They're stuck, with no way forward or back."Chan-woo recalls that when he started working in the industry a decade ago, at 23, "The perception of dog meat wasn't that negative"."Still," he adds, "There were some comments from people around me, so even back then I was aware that it wasn't something I could do for the rest of my life."The ban came quicker than he expected – and since its announcement, he says, "Making a living has become incredibly uncertain"."All we're hoping for now is that the grace period can be extended so that the process [of dealing with the remaining dogs] can happen more gradually."Many others are hoping for the same. But as the dog meat industry is pulled out from under the feet of those who've come to depend upon it, Mr Joo can't help but speculate on a grim thought: that some farmers may not be able to endure the uncertainty for much longer."Right now, people are still holding on, hoping something might change – maybe the grace period will be extended," he says. "But by 2027, I truly believe something terrible will happen."There are so many people whose lives have completely unravelled."
