SEATTLE, Washington — Kenneth Bae arrived home after years of imprisonment in North Korea, expressing his gratitude to the US government for securing his release and revealing that his time there offered lessons.
And his sister said he had one stipulation for his first meal back home: No Korean food.
“He said, ‘I don’t want Korean food, that’s all I’ve been eating for the last two years,’” Terri Chung said Sunday outside her Seattle church. “We had a late night eating pizza.”
Bae and Matthew Miller, another American who had been held captive in North Korea, landed Saturday night at a Washington state military base after a top US intelligence official secured their release.
“It’s been an amazing two years, I learned a lot, I grew a lot, I lost a lot of weight,” Bae, a Korean-American missionary with health problems, said at Joint Base-Lewis-McChord Saturday night. Asked how he was feeling, he said, “I’m recovering at this time.”
Bae, surrounded by family members, spoke briefly to the media after the plane carrying him and Miller landed. He thanked President Barack Obama and the people who supported him and his family. He also thanked the North Korean government for releasing him.
“I just want to say thank you all for supporting me and standing by me,” Bae said. His family has said he suffers from diabetes, an enlarged heart, liver problems and back pain.
Chung said Bae was in better shape when he arrived than his family expected. She said he had spent about six weeks in a North Korean hospital before he returned.
“That helped. As you know, he had gone back and forth between the labor camp and hospital,” she said.
She said he was checked out by a doctor on the flight back to the United States.
His plans for the near future include rest and food and reconnecting with friends and family. Neither his wife nor his children could make it back to Seattle in time for Bae’s homecoming, his sister said.
They plan to gather the whole family together for Thanksgiving, she said.
Members of Bae’s family, who live near the sprawling military base south of Seattle, had met him when he landed. His mother hugged him after he got off the plane. Miller stepped off the US government aircraft a short time later and also was greeted with hugs.
US officials said Miller of Bakersfield, California, and Bae of Lynnwood, Washington state, flew back with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. Clapper was the highest-ranking American to visit Pyongyang in more than a decade.
Their release was the latest twist in the fitful relationship between the Obama administration and the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, whose approach to the US has shifted back and forth from defiance to occasional conciliation.
Bae was serving a 15-year sentence for alleged anti-government activities. He was detained in 2012 while leading a tour group to a North Korean economic zone.
Miller was serving a six-year jail term on charges of espionage after he allegedly ripped up his tourist visa at Pyongyang’s airport in April and demanded asylum. North Korea said Miller had wanted to experience prison life so he could secretly investigate the country’s human rights situation.
Bae and Miller were the last two Americans held captive by the reclusive Communist country.
Last month, North Korea released Jeffrey Fowle of Miamisburg, Ohio, who was held for nearly six months. He had left a Bible in a nightclub in the hope that it would reach North Korea’s underground Christian community.
Speaking Sunday, Chung said her brother was staying with family members, and enjoyed visiting with his loved ones upon his return.
“He was cut off from all of that for two years,” she said. “His only contacts were his guard, and maybe doctors and a handful of times the Swedish embassy.” Sweden represents US interests because the US and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations.
Chung said she was thrilled to have her brother home, and that “he bears no ill will” over his ordeal.
Although he still has warm feelings for the North Korean people, Chung doubted her brother would want to return to that country any time soon.
He hasn’t told them many details about his ordeal and Chung said she remains worried about her brother.
The State Department called the family at about 2 am Saturday to give them the news that Bae was coming home. They also received a call a few days earlier saying something might be happening, but Chung was reluctant to believe that message.
“There’s been a lot of heartbreak and disappointment,” she said of the time spent waiting for her brother’s release.
She thanked people around the world for their prayers and government officials and others for advocating for Bae’s release. She also said former detainees and their families have been a source of comfort and support for her family.
“First and foremost we thank God,” Chung said, adding soon afterward, “I have to thank President Obama.”
