Letter: U.S. Marines shouldn’t violate Okinawa bay

As an Army-occupying-force member from 1966-72, who married a lovely Okinawan gal and moved my family to Hawaii in 1972, I read and re-read the article, “Younger Okinawans are more tolerant of U.S. military presence, study finds” (Star-Advertiser, April 21), with puzzlement and finally, dissatisfaction.

Older Okinawans would very naturally resent U.S. occupation because they managed to survive one of history’s most horrific wartime slaughters of civilians — and then endured (as did my wife as a young woman), for example, walking along a sidewalk and being groped by GIs in the 1950s-60s.

And if, of an 18,000-person Marine presence currently, fully half are to vacate Okinawa premises, at an expected expenditure of $20 billion and 13 years, why not just forgo violating a pristine Henoko/Oura Bay and enclose the remaining Marines into one consolidated rural land space — or simply remove all of them, post-haste?

Robert H. Stiver

Pearl City

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