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.
United States Army Garrison Heidelberg
The U.S. Army Garrison Heidelberg was made up of a number of United States military installations in and around Heidelberg, Germany in the state of Baden-Württemberg, along with Germersheim Depot in the neighboring German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In addition, some NATO facilities were present on the installations. In June 2010, USAG Heidelberg was inactivated and consolidated into its parent unit, U.S. Army Garrison Baden-Wuerttemberg. This was a preparatory move for a complete relocation away from Heidelberg: From 2012 to 2015 the relocation of all U.S. military units (many to Wiesbaden, Germany) marked an end point in the history of the U.S. Army Garrison Heidelberg. The U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR) headquarters, located in Heidelberg since 1952 as part of the garrison, was moved to Wiesbaden to a newly built installation at Lucius D. Clay Kaserne in 2012. All military installations in Heidelberg were handed over to the German state by 2015 for conversion to civilian use.