Chapter 1

Japan was fascinating; it even smelled different. I really had seen nothing of Tokyo, just the blanket of smog; the air here was much cleaner and clearer; it had an almost earthy smell, along with the smell of the bay and ocean nearby. Most of the 30 or so of us were bused to the receiving barracks, which was an old WWII open squad bay building. It was early afternoon; our records were collected, we were given an hour orientation about the immediate area, and released for the day; told not to leave the base.

We had been flying for over 16 hours, and were almost exactly half-way around the world. We were 13 hours ahead of the American east coast; my body’s internal clock was way out of sync with my new environment. The chow hall was a couple blocks away; at the orientation we were told to get something to eat and try to stay awake and sleep that night; not hit the rack now and sleep the day away. I had managed to sleep for a couple hours on the last leg of the flight from the US, the overnight stop in Tokyo hadn’t changed our circadian rhythm at all; most of the guys ignored the advice and simply collapsed on their racks, some still in their clothes. I was tired but decided to stay up, I undressed and grabbed my toiletries and headed for the shower; and ran into one of the big differences between Cherry Point and Iwakuni.

We had been told that there were Japanese civilians working all over the base, men and women; mostly in general labor positions. They were the ones that maintained and cleaned the barracks; we were told to ignore them and just go about our business. I was in the open shower, 15 showerheads mounted around the small tiled room, when I heard someone come in. I just ignored whoever it was; I was stunned when I turned around and there was a clothed middle-aged Japanese woman, scrubbing the walls. She ignored me too, but I got out of there in record time. In Japan, casual nudity is ignored.

At suppertime I walked over to the chow hall and ran into the second big difference; I was used to right-hand drive; in Japan they drive on the left. And the driver, steering wheel, pedals, etc. were in what I considered the passenger seat. You wouldn’t think that was a big thing; but I stepped off the sidewalk to cross the street, and of course looked the wrong way first. Damn near got run over by a tiny Japanese car, about twice the size of a go-cart; a little bigger, but not much. I soon found out that most Japanese cars were very small; the smallest ones had a 2-cylinder engine, a top speed of maybe 40 miles an hour (and took a full minute to reach that speed), and weighed much less than a thousand pounds. Thank God for that; you’ll find out why later.

I went to the chow hall, another old WWII building, and had supper; then roamed the immediate area to get familiar with it; then headed back to the barracks. I got my first exposure to the American Forces Radio and Television Service; acronym AFRTS, known by us as ‘farts’. They broadcast American music and news by AM radio, 16 hours a day; and old American movies and TV shows on a single channel, 8 hours a day. The range was only 5 miles, which covered the base; but that was what we got to listen to, and watch in the evening. I was able to get to sleep very easily that night; when most of the guys that crashed earlier were waking up. Getting adjusted to the new time zone took a couple days; I found out exercising helped some.

I won’t go into detail about the orientation lectures we received, some were interesting, some we just tried to stay awake for. Meanwhile our records were gone through, our pay records were updated, our medical and dental records were sent on to those units. Finally we were released to our new squadron, which picked us up in vans; we’re still dragging around all our luggage. MCAS was the home of the 3^rd Marine Air Wing, I was further assigned to Marine Air Group 12, and then Headquarters and Maintenance Squadron 12 (H&MS-12); I’m still a hamster, now a Japanese one. We got a very quick ‘welcome aboard’ by the XO, which was expanded upon by the unit SgtMaj; his translated to ‘do your job, and don’t fuck up’. Our personal records were collected, and we were escorted to the barracks to get assigned a room, only a couple blocks away.

The history of the base is interesting; it started as a WWII Japanese air base, and the Corps took it over after the Korean War armistice signing; South Korea is only a 30-minute flight away. During my time there, there were lots of original buildings; my barracks turned out to be the old Japanese base hospital, a very large building. Quite different from what I had experienced before; it was known as ‘Block 8’, because it covered the entire block. About 30 large room on the ground floor and 40 upstairs; each room held 25 to 40 Marines, almost comfortably. Each room had a ‘papa-san’ that cleaned the room, made our racks, changed our sheets once a week, and shined our shoes. Everyone in the room paid him $10 twice a month, on our paydays; it was actually pretty nice. We had a TV and refrigerator in our room, but no air conditioning; it sometimes got very warm in the room during the summer.

I got assigned a room on the ground floor near the main entrance, located an empty rack and got unpacked. The room papa-san went and got sheets for me, and made my bed; we chatted a little bit while I stowed my uniforms and gear; his English was surprisingly good. My roommates trickled in and out, and I slowly got to know them. My room was designated as one of the avionics rooms; my roommates were also my shop mates, we all worked in the same place. They were the ones that took me to the shop in the morning, and introduced me to my new boss.

The shop was very similar to what I’d been in at Cherry Point; located in the same type maintenance vans, the same test equipment inside; I’ll be working on the same black boxes. This shop was bigger with more people, I’m not in a training command anymore; there are three sets of the test benches I work on, one of them quite old. I was assigned to the day shift; there was a night shift and occasionally a midnight shift was added when operations increased. Most of the guys were married and had left their spouses behind, everyone was on individual 13-month tours of duty; which meant that every month we lost a guy or two to go back to the states, and picked up a replacement.

I settled into work pretty quickly; a few new procedures and obviously new locations; but everyone helped me get settled in. At work we were in our working uniform, after hours we changed to civilian attire, mostly jeans and a decent shirt. Once we were off duty it was a little different; basically there was three things to do. One was to take advantage of the educational opportunities on base, similar to Cherry Point. The second was to exercise and play sports; almost every unit had at least one team in most of the major sports, and there were games every night. The third was to party; made easy because the base clubs were huge and pretty cheap; you could get a drink for a buck and listen to the juke box, sometimes a DJ or a band. The bars right outside the main gate were even cheaper, and made emptying your wallet painless.

As I said, the educational stuff was pretty much the same, with one exception. At the main gate was a visitor’s welcome center, where the Japanese workers checked in and out, and visitors could be met. A secondary function was that it served as an introduction to the local area, with brochures, pamphlets, and maps; think of a state’s welcome center when you cross the border on the freeway. You could also go up there and learn to speak conversational Japanese, in an informal setting. All Japanese learn English in school; they may not speak it well but they mostly understand what you’re saying. You could almost always go there after hours and find someone local to talk to; you learn Japanese, they improve their English, and community relations get better. Mostly it was younger adults who needed improved English speaking for some reason; usually working on or with the base; but sometimes it was college students. You had to know what you were doing though; if you got there at the right time, you could run into one of the bar girls heading for work; they would drag you along with her, and help you empty your wallet.

Drinking and partying was not really encouraged, but tolerated on base. Off base was different; the exchange rate was around 300 yen to a dollar, and you could get a drink in the local clubs for about a buck, though there was a method to that. The first hundred yards down the street from the main gate was light commercial; tailors and dry cleaners, pawn shops and trinket shops, a tiny used car lot that had 6-8 cars for sale and sold car insurance, a couple little mini-marts, a tattoo shop; that kind of thing. At the hundred-yard mark you crossed the local train tracks, something you were warned to never mess with; if you caused the train to stop or even just slow down, you had majorly messed up. The next quarter mile was lined with clubs, each specializing in some type of music, and cheap drinks; we called it the gauntlet. All of them had very scantily dressed Japanese women outside to entice you inside; it wasn’t unusual to be dragged inside if you paused for just a second. The way that worked was to get you inside, and you buy yourself and your new friend a drink; but hers was going to be tea, while yours was alcohol. Each cost 50 cents, so you spend the same dollar a round as on base; but now you have a real, live woman sitting with you, or on your lap. 10 dollars later you’re not sure of the location of the base, just down the road. Most of the bar girls were just that; but a couple of the bigger clubs had ‘back rooms’; you could take a slightly different kind of girl back there, to have a slightly different kind of ‘fun’; I never personally found out the going rate. From what I heard, $20 would get you a complete evening; not including cab fare if you didn’t know where the base was, or couldn’t walk it.

Once you got past the gauntlet, you hit the first traffic light; now you were in a more sedate part of town. Still a few clubs, but not near as wild; and a couple small restaurants and shops. If you turned right at the light, a mile down the road was the city train station; from there you could go anywhere in the country. Turn left and you started to get into the residential area; no one turned left. If you went straight you got into a primarily Japanese commercial area; there were a couple neighborhood-type bars and restaurants, rarely did anyone go down there, except for me.

Exercising was the same as back at Cherry Point, just lots more of it. Most of the guys just played team sports; softball, football, basketball and the like; a lot of individual sports were played; tennis, racquetball, running, etc.; all the equipment needed to play was available to check out for free. Most guys got back into the shape they were in when they graduated from bootcamp, or better. I keep saying guys, because there were maybe a hundred American women on base; most of them married, the others seriously attached to someone.

There was something different at the gym; every night there was instruction in at least one kind of martial art, usually given by a Japanese expert. Karate, taekwondo, judo, jujitsu, aikido, kung fu, kendo, and several others. You could simply watch or join the club and take part. I did some of that; mostly learning more about how to defend myself, without getting hurt. Occasionally there were competitions, and those would include students and teachers from outside the gate.

Japan has an almost completely different culture; one reason the end of WWII was so difficult. The are very polite and accommodating, I would get lost in town and ask someone for directions; most of the time, they would personally take me to where I was going. After a month or so I visited Hiroshima; site of the first atomic bombing; which completely destroyed the city. The city at that time was mostly wooden buildings; one moment it was a nice summer day; the next moment everything within a mile of ground zero, just disappeared. There were maybe a dozen concrete and brick building; the skeletons of those were the only things that survived, and almost recognizable. I saw the National Peace Memorial, and toured the museum, a very sobering place.

For the first couple of months, I was a tourist after hours. I opened a savings account at the base credit union; most of my pay went into that, the rest I stashed in my wall locker; if my extra cash wasn’t in my pocket, I’d be less inclined to waste it on things I really didn’t need. I spent an hour or so most nights at the visitor’s center, learning conversational Japanese; turned out my memory was good for learning languages also. There was a replica of a Japanese medieval castle not far away, Iwakuni Castle; and an ancient wooden foot bridge, the Kintaikyo Bridge. Both were tourist spots; good for soaking up the local culture and meeting new people. Hiroshima was a new city, nothing older than 30 years, but there were interesting places to go there, also.

One of those places was a large 12-story skyscraper department store; you could go to the roof, and watch the Hiroshima Carp baseball team play across the street. In Japan, there are no rain delays in baseball; they played in pouring down rain, and inches of mud; best to watch those games on TV. There was a covered shopping district that was fun to walk through; again all I had to do was speak a few words of Japanese, and I had someone new to talk to. A lot of women, but many guys too; interested in the States and perfecting their English. There were many small bars in Hiroshima that had a happy hour where the drinks were 50 yen, less than a quarter a drink.

Drinking in Japan was different; a business man, known as a ‘salaryman’, was almost expected to go out on the town regularly, and get completely intoxicated; falling down drunk. The taxi drivers were all obsessed with baseball; usually throwing a ball around while waiting for a fare at the taxi stand. And don’t ask a taxi driver to hurry; “Hayaku, dozo” will turn him into a road racer. Traditional married women are very reserved, but manage the family’s finances. ‘Saving face’ and avoiding direct confrontation is very important; and communication involves a lot of nonverbal cues; bowing properly, for example. The first couple of months were very interesting as I got further and further from the base, exploring the area.

Mostly alone, but occasionally with someone from my shop; the middle of the summer I decided to take Paul, a new guy in the shop, to Hiroshima to show him around. We decided to walk to the train station, a little over a mile away; it was almost noon when disaster almost hit. We were walking on the sidewalk along the main road, talking about what we’d be seeing. The road was two-lane and traffic moving along briskly; then a soccer ball came bouncing out of a one-lane side road, right in front of us. The buildings along the road were side-by-side and right up against the sidewalk; the ball was maybe 10 yards away and almost in the traffic lane. Without thinking I started running, leaving Paul behind; sure as hell a little girl came running out of the alley, chasing the ball; not looking at anything else.

Time slowed for me; horns are blaring and tires squealing; I got to the little girl maybe a second before she was going to get hit by one of the small Japanese cars. I wrapped her in my arms and jumped up, turning away from the approaching car; my first conscious thought was that this was going to hurt. I was right; my knee hit the top front of the hood, my body landed in the middle of the hood, and I cracked my head on the top of the windshield frame. I also almost stuck one of the windshield wipers hubs up my ass; fortunately, only almost. We didn’t hit all that hard, the car was close to being stopped; I was stunned and slid to my feet ion front of the car and let the unharmed little girl go; then slowly collapsed and sat down in the middle of the street. Then; confusion reigned.