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.
GI Coffeehouses
As the U.S. led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have continued, several GI coffeehouses have been established near major military bases modeling themselves loosely on the tradition established during the Vietnam War. There is the Under the Hood Café in Killeen, TX; Coffee Strong in Lakewood, WA near Joint Base Lewis–McChord; and Norfolk Offbase in Norfolk, VA near the Norfolk Naval Base, which is the largest naval base in the world. These coffeehouses see themselves as providing antiwar information and alternative support for GIs, information they are not likely to find in traditional military support networks.