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.
King of the Hammers
In 2013 the United States Marines were supposed to take Johnson Valley, California away from off-roaders and turn the area into an expanded training facility. Through the work of California politicians the area called Johnson Valley will stay open to the off-road community. There will be changes made to the riding area, as the Marines did get a large portion of the land. The King of the Hammers course will have to be altered just slightly for 2015 and future King of the Hammers. The compromise was what off-roaders needed in order to still visit their favorite places in Johnson Valley, the base expansion did not take away the most popular attractions on Johnson Valley. The compromise gave roughly 43,000 acres to Johnson Valley, 79,000 acres to the Marines and 53,000 of joint use land. The Marines can use that 53,000 acres for two 30-day periods every year, the rest of the time it will be for the off roaders use. The off-road community will continue to benefit from this compromise even if part of their land was taken away. The community surrounding the Johnson Valley off-road area gains around $71 million a year from off roaders going to and from the area.
There was a petition put on the White House web site asking that the Marines not be given the land. One reason that was given was that it was fiscally irresponsible; that expanding such a large base would cost the tax payers for years to come. The Twenty Nine Palms Marine Base is the largest Marine base in the world; the petition gained 29,456 supporters however that was not enough to prevent the compromise from going through. The bill was introduced because the Marines needed the additional land for live-fire training in an area similar to where they will be actually fighting. The compromise was decided upon in the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). There are no reports on the numbers by which the bill passed or how many revisions the bill had before it passed. The bill is H.R. 1676 and the bill is called “Johnson Valley National Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Area Establishment Act.”