Tag: USFJ

I am surprised this wasn’t a requirement a long time ago:

The U.S. military has ordered extra scrutiny for South Koreans who want to visit friends or attend events on American bases in Japan.

U.S. Forces Japan recently added the longtime American ally to a list of nations whose citizens must undergo additional screening before they can be escorted onto installations.

A copy of the list posted near the entrance to the home of USFJ in western Tokyo now features South Korea alongside about 50 other nations, including North Korea, China, Russia, Iran and Afghanistan.

“No personnel will escort a designated third country national onto Yokota Air Base,” says a sign posted next to the list, which also includes France. “It is the responsibility of the escort sponsor to verify the individual is not from one of the … designated countries.”

USFJ did not provide a reason for the new checks on South Koreans.

People from designated third countries aren’t authorized to enter U.S. bases in Japan without prior coordination of supporting agencies and approval by the installation commander, said Air Force Maj. Genieve White, a USFJ spokeswoman.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

The alcohol restriction for US military personnel in Japan due to a recent deadly drunk driving incident has been relaxed:

U.S. Forces Japan has loosened alcohol restrictions imposed after a fatal Nov. 19 vehicle accident involving a 21-year-old Marine on Okinawa.

The revised rules, which took effect at 4:30 p.m. Thursday local time, allow servicemembers to purchase alcoholic beverages on base and drink them in their on- or off-base homes, Maj. George Tobias, a 5th Air Force spokesman, told Stars and Stripes.

“The purchase or consumption of alcohol off-base is still not permitted with the exception of one’s own off-base residence,” he said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but if personnel in Japan think the current restrictions on alcohol are bad, at least leadership in USFJ has not resorted to blood alcohol tests at the gate like we have seen in the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea many years ago.

It seems the US President has received a very warm welcome in Japan:

Landing in Japan on the first stop of his marathon five-nation tour of Asia, U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday called the nation a “treasured partner” and “crucial ally” of the United States while asserting that “no dictator” and “no regime” should ever underestimate America — a not-so-veiled rebuke of nuclear-armed North Korea.

After paying a solemn visit to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii on Friday, Trump on Sunday marked the start of his trip to Asia by disembarking from Air Force One at the U.S. Air Force’s Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo. Cheers erupted as he appeared on stage with his wife, first lady Melania Trump, prompting thousands of U.S. military personnel there to welcome the pair with enthusiastic chants of “USA! USA! USA!”

 “Japan is a treasured partner and crucial ally of the Unites States,” Trump told a packed aircraft hangar after changing into a bomber jacket. “Today we thank them for decades of wonderful friendship between our two nations.”

It was the first visit by Trump to Japan since his astonishing rise to the presidency last year. The trip will give him and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — touted as one of his best friends among world leaders — a chance to reaffirm their shared strategy of piling “maximum pressure” on the North while also demonstrating anew the strength of the two nations’ alliance.

After delivering his speech, Trump flew to Kasumigaseki Country Club in Saitama Prefecture for two hours of golf diplomacy with Abe — an informal setting that also involved 25-year-old professional golfer Hideki Matsuyama.

Before hitting the links, Abe presented Trump and Matsuyama with white baseball caps, each embroidered with the message “Donald & Shinzo Make Alliance Even Greater.”  [Japan Times]

You can read more at the link, but President Trump gave a nice speech to US troops at Yokota Airbase as well.

I bet the leadership in USFJ when they heard about this accident probably thought to themselves, at least this accident did not happen on Okinawa:

A Yokota civilian was under the influence of alcohol before the car he was driving crashed into another vehicle, injuring its occupant, Japanese officials said Monday.

A man in his 20s was taken to the hospital after the accident, which happened around 6 p.m. on May 7, a North Kanto Defense Bureau spokesman said. The man sustained minor injuries to his neck, he said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

If you are an E-5 or below in Japan life is still going to sort of suck for you if you like to stay out late:

Junior enlisted servicemembers stationed in Japan must now be accompanied after 10 p.m. when drinking alcoholic beverages off base, according to a new U.S. Forces Japan liberty policy.

The policy, which replaces a 2014 version, also creates three new operational levels that allow commanders to place varying restrictions on movement and alcohol consumption.

The changes follow a series of arrests in Japan that last month sparked one of the largest protests against the U.S. military in decades on Okinawa, where half of all U.S. servicemembers are stationed.

“Acts of indiscipline or criminal behavior by U.S. military personnel adversely impact international relations, tarnish the image of the United States military and affect our military readiness,” said an order signed by Lt. Gen. John Dolan, USFJ commander.

Servicemembers in pay grades E-5 and below who drink off base after 10 p.m. must go out with another servicemember, Defense Department civilian worker or DOD family member; if they drink with someone else, that person should be command approved, according to the policy.

Servicemembers in all ranks are banned from drinking alcoholic beverages off base between midnight and 5 a.m., a rule instituted as part of the 2014 policy. In pay grades E-5 and below, a 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. curfew remains in effect.

For junior enlisted servicemembers on temporary duty in Japan, the restrictions are tighter; the new policy requires them to have a “liberty buddy” even if they aren’t drinking, if they go off base after 10 p.m.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

The rhetoric from Donald Trump to make US allies pay 100% of the costs for stationing US troops in their countries has brought increased attention of how much US allies do pay.  For those that didn’t know Japan pays nearly 3/4 of the costs for the stationing of US troops in their country:

A senior Japanese government official said Friday that Tokyo intends to work harder to convince Trump and his policy advisers to change their stance. “He doesn’t understand that the stationing of troops here is in the interest of the United States,” the official said.

Meanwhile, a Foreign Ministry source said, “As [Trump] has been obsessed with placing more of a burden on U.S. allies, he’s unlikely to back down.”  (………..)

According to a report compiled in 2004 by the U.S. Defense Department, Japan’s financial contribution accounted for 74.5 percent of the total, or about 4.4 billion dollars U.S.(about 470 billion yen at a recent exchange rate).  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Drink/drive limit toughened on US military bases in Japan, in line with Japanese standard: https://t.co/aK8MyPkc68 pic.twitter.com/0BQioioflO

— Erik Slavin (@eslavin_stripes) March 28, 2016

More bad news for US Forces Japan.  The strangest thing to me about this story is how do you assault someone for 90 minutes on airplane?:

 A Navy lieutenant was arrested Friday following allegations that he groped and punched a female passenger aboard a Japan-bound flight, police and Navy officials said.

The lieutenant, 33, assigned to Naval Air Facility Atsugi, is suspected of touching the 19-year-old college student’s clothed thigh, then punching her in the head several times during a flight from San Diego to Narita International Airport, an airport police spokesman said.

Police allege the officer assaulted the woman for about 90 minutes aboard the Japan Airlines flight, beginning around 11 a.m. Thursday, according to police and media reports.

The woman changed seats after another passenger reported the incident to a flight attendant, police said.

The officer had been drinking on the flight, though how much he had consumed is unclear, the police spokesman said.

Police arrested the lieutenant and took him into custody shortly after midnight, following an investigation that began after the plane arrived Thursday afternoon.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest of this crazy story at the link.

Here we go again, hopefully the hotel has security cameras that caught exactly what happened in the hotel lobby:

(CNN)A U.S. serviceman has been arrested in the southern Japanese prefecture of Okinawa on suspicion of raping a Japanese tourist, local police have confirmed to CNN. The alleged attack took place in the serviceman’s hotel room in Naha, the prefectural capital.

The man, identified by Okinawan police as 24-year old Navy sailor Justin Castellanos, stationed at Camp Schwab in Okinawa, allegedly took the victim, a 40-year-old woman from the Japanese prefecture of Kyushu, to his room after finding her asleep, drunk, in the hotel’s lobby before raping her. [CNN]

You can read the rest at the link but it does bother me how the media names the accused sailor in the article before he even goes to trial. 

As we have seen in the past in South Korea, the anti-US activists like to use the environmental card to bash the US military with.  The Japanese government is getting out in front of this issue by getting this agreement in place that allows them to have personnel on US military bases to monitor environmental issues:

The U.S. and Japan signed an accord Monday that will permit Japanese access to U.S. military facilities in Japan for environmental surveys.

The agreement – signed at the Pentagon by U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida – supplements the long-standing Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement that allows the United States to maintain military bases in Japan. While this does not officially amend the SOFA, it is the first such bilateral supplement to the agreement since its implementation in 1960, according to a defense official who was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.