Hello, My nickname is Jae so that is my name. I plan to join the U.S. Air Forces and attend Linguistical School in Monterey California to become a Japanese translator. Talking to my recruiter I realize this means that when I am done with school I will be living in Japan on a base and maybe attending a Japanese college. I have seen in manga and anime peoples reactions to the bases and all and I was wondering what a real person thought of it. Does it mystify you? What does it look like to you? A Prison? An annoying place for Gaijins to hang out? What do the people on the bases do? What influence do they have on the surrounding community? pretty much anything having to do with people and foreign bases. If you told me your thoughts it would be awsome...
 

This just pisses me off.. you assume that my thoughts on bases are all about what I have read in anime and manga like im some little child or something.. not true at all.I just didnt list my personal thoughts... and I meant real person as in not a comic book character or one authors point of view. I am talking bases as just particularly places... no two bases are exactly the same. Yes I have seen bases and I know lots about them. What I am wondering if I didnt make it clear is how a Japanese person living in Japan thinks about American naval bases. Not someone on the side. Japanese people think differently than alot of other races... that point is clearly made in any book about Japan and the Japanese people. That isnt a racist comment, that is the truth and there is no denying it. I want to dig into the thoughts of someone who is Japanese whos lives might have been influenced by american bases... that is why I am asking if they think it looks like a prison.. depending on the person it can... Please think clearly reguarding my questions and why I would have asked them in the first place.. they arent there for silly purposes.. ciao

Quote from Litheless   on 03/02/06 at 04:45:57:

 
Just to let you know I read this post and am considering how to reply to it, I am going to suggest to you that out of all the members posting here from Japan I probably have a better perspective of the bases and how they affect and effect the local communities and people around them.  I have been on "both" sides of the fence and know very well how things are going.  
 
I just happen to live in the Prefecture that has the largest concentration of US military bases anwhere in Japan,  The Prefecture I live in has US Army, US Navy,  US Airforce and US Marines, no other Prefecture in Japan can make that claim, also no other Prefecture in Japan can compare the problems and difficulties the "local" communities have gone through like the one that I live in.    
 
More later...........

Oh my lord... Hachiro, could you have honestly not just answered the god damn questions!?!? I read this post weeks ago and was eager to hear an answer. Now I come back to this horrendous, unreadable shitpile of a thread. I'm reading the initial post and I see three. specific. questions. So what was the problem again?
 
Quote:

I'm guessing she would respond with actual answers instead of a frkkin critique on the post itself.
Like a regular person would.
 
-You're cool & helpful but you need to ease up on the high & mighty attitude. Just kick the idea around in your head before you reply.

Quote from Asashoryu   on 03/04/06 at 01:49:57:

 
Fair enough, I have been on a few message boards pertaining to things here in Japan where people have a tendency to literally rip one another new ***holes if what one writes is not concise or to the point.   I need to change some habits that I have when posting here and remember that not everyone has the same expectations.  
 
Quote:

 
Thank you for your comments, I take your point.  I am not an ***hole either, I just have a habit of taking people for what they say on a message board at face value.  Evidently I need to read between the lines more often in what people are writing.  
 
Oh btw, I do have a fairly thick skin....cheers, thanks for taking the time to make your comments, thoughts and opinions known to me.  
 
To save the OP some headaches in trying to reply to all of that, and to not scare her off,  I removed the the critically reviewed posts.

(Part Two....first post was waaayyyy too long sorry)
 
The invasion began on 01 April 1945 when 60,000 troops (two Marine and two Army divisions) landed with little opposition. The day began and ended with the heaviest concentration of naval gunfire ever expended to support an amphibious landing. Gathered off the invasion beaches were 10 older American battleships, including several Pearl Harbor survivors, the USS Tennessee, Maryland, and West Virginia, as well as 9 cruisers, 23 destroyers and destroyer escorts, and 117 rocket gunboats. Together they fired 3,800 tons of shells at Okinawa during the first 24 hours. Okinawans had long been resigned to the severe typhoons that sweep their land, but nothing in their experience prepared them for the tetsu no bow -- the "storm of steel" -- as one Okinawan characterized the assault on the island. At 0830 the 7th and 96th Infantry Divisions of the XXIV Corps and the 1st and 6th Marine Divisions of the III Amphibious Corps crossed the Hagushi beaches, with 16,000 troops landing unopposed in the first hour. By nightfall more than 60,000 were ashore.  
 
Although Okinawa was strongly defended by more than 100,000 troops, the Japanese chose not to defend the beaches. The uncontested landings of 01 April were part of the overall Japanese strategy to avoid casualties defending the beach against overwhelming Allied firepower. A system of defense in depth, especially in the southern portion of the island, would permit the 100,000-man-strong Japanese 32nd Army under General Ushijima to fight a protracted battle that would put both the attacking amphibious forces and naval armada at risk. The Japanese dug into caves and tunnels on the high ground away from the beaches in an attempt to negate the Allies' superior sea and air power.  
 
The battle proceeded in four phases: first, the advance to the eastern coast (April 1-4); second, the clearing of the northern part of the island (April 5th through the 18th); third, the occupation of the outlying islands (April 10 - June 26); and fourth, the main battle against the dug in elements of the 32nd Army which began on 06 April and did not end until 21 June. Although the first three phases encountered only mild opposition, the final phase proved extremely difficult because the Japanese were well entrenched in and naval gunfire support was ineffective.  
 
On April 6-7, the first use of massed formations of hundreds of kamikaze aircraft called kikusui, or "floating chrysanthemum", for the imperial symbol of Japan, began. By the end of the Okinawan campaign, 1,465 kamikaze flights were flown from Kyushu to sink 30 American ships and damage 164 others. The Japanese had devised a plan to load-up high-speed motorboats with high explosives and have them attack the American Fleet. The boats were hidden in caves up rivers and pulled inside along railroad tracks. The plan never was carried out, however.  
 
The Japanese battleship, Yamato, the largest warship ever built accompanied by the light cruiser Yahagi and eight destroyers, was dispatched to Okinawa on 06 April 1945, with no protective air cover. So badly depleted was the Japanese fleet by this time, Yamato was reported to carry only enough fuel for a one-way trip to Okinawa. Her mission: beach herself at Okinawa and fight until eliminated. The American submarine Hackleback tracked her movements and alerted carrier-based bombers. Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher launched air strikes on April 7 at 10 a.m. The first hits on Yamato were claimed by the carrier Bennington. San Jacinto planes sunk the destroyer Hamakaze, with a bomb and torpedo hit. The light cruiser Yahagi was hit by bombs and went dead in the water. For the next two hours, the Japanese force was under constant attack. Yamato took 12 bombs and seven torpedo hits within two hours, finally blowing up and sinking. Three accompanying destroyers were so badly damaged they had to be scuttled. Four remaining destroyers could not return to Japan. Of Yamato's crew of 2,747, all but 23 officers and 246 enlisted men were lost. Yahagi lost 446; Asashimo lost 330; the seven destroyers, 391 officers and men. There were few Japanese survivors. Losses to the Americans were 10 planes and 12 men. This was the last Japanese naval action of the war.  
 
By 19 April soldiers and marines of the US Tenth Army under LGEN Buckner USA were engaged in a fierce battle along a fortified front which represented the outer ring of the Shuri Line. This fighting contrasted dramatically with the unopposed landings and initial rapid advances of the previous weeks. The Shuri defenses were deeply dug into the limestone cliffs and boasted mutually supporting positions as well as a wealth of artillery of various calibers. As the battle dragged on, American casualties mounted. This delay in securing the island caused great consternation among the naval commanders since the fleet of almost 1,600 ships was exposed to heavy enemy air attacks. The most damage from the Japanese attacks came from operation Ten-Go (Heavenly Operation) which employed mass deployment of the fearsome kamikaze.  
 
American losses mounted as soldiers and marines assaulted points on the Shuri line with the deceptive names of Sugar Loaf, Chocolate Drop, Conical Hill, Strawberry Hill, and Sugar Hill. During the course of the battle American forces were informed of two pieces of dramatic news, one tragic and the other joyous. The first was the death of president Franklin Roosevelt on 12 April and the latter the surrender of Nazi Germany on 8 May.  
 
By the end of May monsoon rains which turned contested slopes and roads into a morass exacerbated both the tactical and medical situations. The ground advance began to resemble a World War I battlefield as troops became mired in mud and flooded roads greatly inhibited evacuation of wounded to the rear. Troops lived on a field sodden by rain, part garbage dump and part graveyard. Unburied Japanese bodies decayed, sank in the mud, and became part of a noxious stew. Anyone sliding down the greasy slopes could easily find their pockets full of maggots at the end of the journey.  
 
Heavy pressure on the Shuri Line finally convinced GEN Ushijima to withdraw southward to his final defensive positions on the Kiyamu Peninsula. His troops began moving out on the night of 23 May but were careful to leave behind rear guard elements that continued to slow the American advance. Japanese soldiers too wounded to travel were given lethal injections of morphine or simply left behind to die. By the first week of June, US forces had captured only 465 enemy troops while claiming 62,548 killed. It would take 2 more weeks of hard fighting and an additional 2 weeks of "mopping up " operations pitting explosives and flamethrowers against determined pockets of resistance before the battle would finally be over. The so called "mopping up" fighting between 23 and 29 June netted an additional 9,000 enemy dead and 3,800 captured. Among the Japanese, the incidence of suicide soared during the final days. An examination of enemy dead revealed that, rather than surrender, many had held grenades against their stomachs, ending their personal war in that manner. General Ushijima committed ritual suicide (hara-kiri) on 16 June, convinced that he done his duty in service to the Emperor.  
 
The document ending the Battle of Okinawa was signed on what is now Kadena Air Base on 07 September 1945. Long before the firing stopped on Okinawa, engineers and construction battalions, following close on the heels of the combat forces, were transforming the island into a major base for the projected invasion of the Japanese home islands.  
 
There is much history that needs to be understood to understand the problems today here in Japan with the US Military presence.
 
 
Many thanks to the USMC for providing much of the information contained in this post Semper Fi!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks for that Hachiro. I for one read throuh the whole thing (all three posts) and found it fascinating, if somewhat depressing, even with three pints of Guinness in my belly (my own favourite beverage before bedtime!).

A question I'd like to ask is how a "Japanese-Okinawan" person views that hyphenated phrase. In other words, do they feel like they are just "Japanese" or that they need to distinguish themselves from mainlanders and fellow Nippon passport holders. And whether mainlanders treat or regard Okinawans differently, either openly or in the subtle ways that we gaijin are regarded.
 
I imagine it being quite similar to how a person from Northern Ireland would feel. Disregarding the religious divides, most consider themselves Irish but are also British citizens. If they happen to be from the Catholic minority, they also have a history of living with and complex feelings about a "foreign military occupancy". People on the British mainland, especially the English, have long regarded Northern Ireland as a bit of a thorn in their side, a drag on the economy, and generally not in a very good light.