Greg Girard
Japan’s southernmost prefecture, Okinawa, hosts a concentration of US military bases unlike anywhere outside the continental United States. More than half the 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan are based here. On the main island of Okinawa nearly 20% of the land is occupied by these bases. This large US military footprint, and the legacy of Okinawa’s history as a US-administered territory until 1972, means that the social and physical landscape of Okinawa is shaped by this relationship with the US military like few other places. In "Hotel Okinawa" (2017), Girard looks at this unique world "on base" and off, separate and yet conjoined, the result of decades of living in close proximity with the US military. Additionally, archival photographs, periodicals and other artefacts, some dating back to the US occupation, appear throughout the book, registering historical strands that are part of the complex fabric of Okinawa today.
List of United States military bases
The United States is the largest operator of military bases abroad, with 38 "named bases" having active-duty, National Guard, reserve, or civilian personnel as of September 30, 2014. Its largest, in terms of personnel, was Ramstein AB, in Germany, with almost 9,200 personnel. The Pentagon stated in 2013 that there are "around" 5,000 bases total, with "around" 600 of them overseas.This is a list of links for U.S. Army forts and installations, organized by U.S. state or territory within the U.S. and by country if overseas. For consistency, major Army National Guard (ARNG) training facilities are included but armory locations are not.U.S. states with no U.S. Army posts