It has been almost 2 weeks since the restrictions were put upon us (all service members, Civilian employees of the military and every ones family members) here on Okinawa. The rules say that we are not allowed to go anywhere, but to the military installations on the island, churches of base, for medical appointments and to and from home (if we live off base). Okay, that does not sound too bad, but it is : just imagine you work downtown and are not allowed to pick-up your children from school on the way, stop for a coffee or run real quick to the post office.... You can see it, but you can not go!!!! Last week we had two incidents in our house that made me question the rules: our car needed to be jump started (the battery was old and I have since gotten a new one), it was 5 am and time for my husband to go to work. He called his boss, so one of the guys could come by for the jump start. His boss had to put that on hold to find out, if that was legal first.... The other situation involved our son, who just had gotten a new soccer ball. He was playing with it in the parking lot of our apartment building. The ball ended up bouncing over a fence and going down the ravine behind our house. The ravine must be over 100 feet deep - it is more like a cliff... We had a long discussion about it being legal for us to go look for the ball down below. It is not legal for us to do so! Even every day little thing require us to think "Are we allowed to do that?" It is pretty bad to be here on a beautiful island and we can not take advantage off it!!! There was a statement by the General in charge of all troops in Japan ( General Zilmer) that there would be a review of the restrictions and the policies today March 3rd. Well, it is almost 9pm Japan time and nothing has been said.... Not even a give us until tomorrow. So here we are with an open-ended restriction and no answers to be found. I think, I could live with this, if I knew when it is supposed to end.....
Just to remind the reason for the restrictions was mostly the allegation of rape of a 14 year old Okinawan girl by a 38 year old Marine . Those charges have been dismissed by the Japanese police and the guy is now in US military custody. He had always admitted to kissing the girl, but denied the rape. (What a 38 year old is doing picking up a 14 year old is beyond me and it was wrong!)Also there had been a few other incidents involving drinking/driving, breaking/entering a Japanese residence and an alleged assault on a Philippine bar worker in a hotel. Since we have been on restriction it has been pretty quiet except for two incidents last weekend: an air man breaking into a Japanese office after climbing the fence to get off base (the guy was intoxicated) and the husband of an air man (woman) being caught in a raid on a drug house... So there are more thing to hold over our heads.
My husband spend 4 hours (from 11 pm until 3 am) on courtesy patrol outside the gates of our local base going through the bar/club district together with some Marines, Soldiers and Air Men. The bars were mostly closed and they ran across nobody breaking the rules....
Most of the problems have been happening during the overnight hours and are alcohol related.... So how about the day time???? Freedom soon, hopefully.......
The picture on top is Shuri Castle here on Okinawa (now we can not go there either).....
No comments:
Post a Comment