most us troops in japan are stationed at okinawa.
most us troops in japan are stationed at okinawa.
where are most us troops in japan stationed?
okinawa
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.
greg girard
in the winter of 1890, the lakota had been upset over a series of treaty violations in the fort laramie treaty of 1851 by the us involving land divisions among tribes in south dakota and the us running railroads through the reservation. there was also dispute around the black hills land where gold was found in 1874. there were a series of battles and assaults upon the indigenous people, the most well known of them being the wounded knee massacre. the sioux had encamped themselves at wounded knee creek and were handing over their weapons to us troops. one deaf lakota did not give up his weapon due to the us troops not knowing how to communicate with the deaf lakota. some accounts say there was a miscommunication as the man was handing over his gun, and that someone's gun discharged in the air. one of the us commanders heard this and ordered his troops to open fire. the commanders called in reinforcement from the hotchkiss cannons that were previously placed on the adjacent ridge. these cannons mowed down everyone in range. by the time the smoke had cleared, almost 300 dead lakota (mostly women and children), 25 dead and 45 injured us troops lay on the ground, most of which was due to friendly fire. the lakota who had escaped the conflict were then hunted down and murdered by the remaining us troops. as this was happening, a blizzard came in and prevented the us troops or the other lakota from the pine ridge reservation from retrieving their dead. this resulted in frozen dead bodies strewn across wounded knee creek for the next 3 days. there was a public uproar when word of the gunfire reached the eastern us and the government reestablished the treaty they had broken with the sioux to avoid any further public backlash.
ghost dance war