May 14th, 2013 at 8:06 am » Comments (4)

It looks like the Navy found themselves a volunteer for the expected force draw down: Japanese police arrested a USS Stethem sailor Sunday night on suspicion of unlawful entry after he was found in a Zushi city elementary school. Petty Officer 2nd Class Kristopher Lee Murphy, 23, is suspected of breaking the glass front door at Hisagi Elementary School and was found sleeping in a second-floor classroom at 7:45 p.m., a Zushi police spokesman said. Police were alerted when a school alarm went off, the spokesman said Monday. Murphy was
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March 23rd, 2013 at 7:20 pm » Comments (9)

If an accident like this happens in South Korea it is very likely that the anti-US leftists in Korea would use it to demand changes to the SOFA in order to drive a wedge between President Park Geun-hye and USFK. A Japanese motorcyclist died Thursday in a collision with a vehicle driven by an on-duty sailor just outside Camp Foster, according to local police and the Marine Corps. A 28-year-old petty officer third-class, whose name was not released, was driving a military van at the base’s Gate 3 on Highway
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March 1st, 2013 at 2:08 am » Comments (12)

It is officially sequestration day: The top U.S. military leader in Japan says sequestration could hit readiness for U.S. forces in the Pacific with fewer naval patrols and aircraft sorties, cuts to maintenance programs and less training with allies. Officials with U.S. Forces Korea also warned servicemembers on the peninsula this week that big changes are ahead there if the spending cuts go through.  (……) Civilian defense employees in Japan have already been told they may be furloughed a day a week starting in April, and military leaders have warned
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February 23rd, 2013 at 6:26 pm » Comments (9)

I never enjoy seeing people lose their livelihoods, but what did people on Okinawa expect was going to happen when it has gotten to the point that seems that every time a US servicemember passes gas in public it makes national headlines? CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Japanese bar owners on Okinawa are urging the U.S. military to end its ban on off-base alcohol consumption, saying a steep drop-off in drinking among servicemembers is cutting deeply into their bottom lines. Since the military imposed a nighttime curfew in October and later
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February 13th, 2013 at 5:47 am » Comments (19)

Here is some good news for USFJ servicemembers who just had their curfew restrictions eased: YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — U.S. Forces Japan adjusted its curfew rules Wednesday, pushing back the start by an hour to midnight for servicemembers below E-5 and dropping it altogether for higher ranks. Servicemembers of all ranks in mainland Japan remain barred from drinking alcohol in public during the 12 a.m.-5 a.m. curfew, according to a USFJ statement. The Air Force and Army immediately adopted the new policy. The Navy said it was delaying implementation
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February 6th, 2013 at 7:32 am » Comments (0)

Hopefully everyone in Korea and Japan were able to get to work safely despite the snow: Winter weather delayed schools and some operations at U.S. military bases in South Korea and Japan on Wednesday, though snowfalls were much lighter than anticipated in much of Japan’s heavily populated Kanto region. In South Korea, as much as six inches of snow fell in some areas overnight, leading to two-hour delays at schools in Seoul and at Camp Humphreys. Road conditions at Humphreys and for most bases in and north of Seoul were
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January 22nd, 2013 at 3:39 am » Comments (8)

According to the Daily Yomiuri Police arrested a U.S. sailor Monday for allegedly trespassing in a house in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in the early hours of the morning. Manuel Silva, a 20-year-old crew member of the USS George Washington, is suspected of entering the property of a 72-year-old woman at about 2:50 a.m. The sailor has admitted the charges, according to Kanagawa prefectural police. Police received three emergency calls around 1:30 a.m. from people living near the woman, saying such things as a stranger was ringing their doorbell. Policemen found
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December 12th, 2012 at 7:38 am » Comments (12)

This just about everybody would agree with what the Harvard psychologist has to say in this below article because it is blatantly obvious: Some or all of the following rules now apply to U.S. servicemembers in Japan: Be home by 11, don’t drink in your home past 10, don’t go to a bar without another adult, don’t leave the house after more than one drink — and your teenager is allowed to stay out later than you. When the Oct. 16 arrest of two Texas-based sailors on rape charges on
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December 11th, 2012 at 3:28 am » Comments (15)

Here is an article in the Stars & Stripes about alcohol use by servicemembers stationed in Asia: U.S. commanders in Japan have been scrambling to curtail alcohol-fueled military misconduct since the alleged rape of an Okinawa woman by two American sailors in October and a rash of other off-base misconduct incidents that followed. Curfews, liberty restrictions and buddy systems were imposed. Lt. Gen. Sam Angelella, U.S. Forces Japan commander, even went so far as to head up an ad hoc late-night “courtesy” patrol of bar row near Yokota Air Base.
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December 4th, 2012 at 3:36 am » Comments (20)

Japanese authorities for whatever reason have decided not to prosecute a US Navy sailor for getting naked and urinating in a manga cafe.  Something like this seems stupid to prosecute anyway if the guy was willing to apologize and make compensation for the incident which maybe he did and thus the reason for the non-prosecution?  Anyway what is of more interest is the effect the arrest had on everyone else in USFJ: Wiygul became the fourth servicemember at the time to be arrested in Japan since the U.S. military instituted
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