Japan Press Weekly

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2012 March 14 - 20 [US FORCES]

US Marines should go home

Akahata “Current” column

The last military helicopter that took off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Sigon (Ho Chi Minh City) at the end of the Vietnam War belonged to the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW), an aviation unit of the U.S. Marine Corps.

The 1st MAW was activated in July 1941, just before the Pacific War broke out in December. This unit engaged in battles against the Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines and New Guinea during the war. Its headquarter is now at Okinawa’s Camp Foster known as Camp Zukeran.

It is the only Marine aircraft wing with headquarters outside of the U.S. mainland. Its aircraft wing is deployed at the Futenma base in Okinawa and the Iwakuni base in Yamaguchi. It is part of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) which is sent abroad for military intervention and whose command headquarters is also located in Okinawa.

The U.S. government indicated that it will cancel a plan to move more than one thousand 1st MAW personnel to Guam and will keep them in Okinawa. When the U.S. proposed the transfer of 1st MAW personnel from Okinawa to the Iwakuni base in Yamaguchi Prefecture, the Japanese government reportedly responded that that would be difficult due to local opposition.

Stationing of the U.S. Marine Corps in Japan is unacceptable not only for people on the Japanese mainland but also for Okinawans. They should be sent packing.

At the end of the Second World War, the U.S. forces forcibly seized the land to construct Camp Zukeran by using bayonets and bulldozers after they failed to convince local residents to leave because of the danger of a mosquito-born epidemic.