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Its a great time here. Lemme tell ya


So is the restriction for Oki only or all of Japan? I recall similar restrictions years ago but it was only Oki--I don't remember it ever being USFJ-wide. The article says "Japan" but I thought it may be a typo. Not sure what would surprise me less at this point: crappy news reporting or an over-reaching punitive response.
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It's all of Japan from what I read. Yea... happy thanksgiving my Misawa brothers!

Let's be real here, a local Okinawan died because of this marines decision. I think this is more political to show what we're doing right. I get it, this won't change anything except the level of morale, but they have to send a message. What's the better move here to appease our host nation? I don't agree with this either, but not sure they have many options.

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1 hour ago, GlassEmpty said:

Let's be real here, a local Okinawan died because of this marines decision. I think this is more political to show what we're doing right. I get it, this won't change anything except the level of morale, but they have to send a message. What's the better move here to appease our host nation? I don't agree with this either, but not sure they have many options.

Spoken like a true AF leader, trying to rationalize poor leadership exercsed in pursuit of how things look.

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28 minutes ago, Hacker said:

Spoken like a true AF leader, trying to rationalize poor leadership exercsed in pursuit of how things look.

What part of "I don't agree with this either" was unclear? I'm not rationalizing anything. An Okinawan died on Okinawan soil, by a drunk American troop at the wheel. Just because you're full of piss and vinegar towards the crap ways of our organization doesn't mean you can't look at the situation from all perspectives.

 

8 minutes ago, gearpig said:

"appease our host nation?"

We have nearly 100,000 personnel stationed in Japan. Is it really insane to believe  our responses towards fixing our personal f*#k ups matter in international relations? So again, I ask what could actually be done, that would also appease the masses of internet keyboard warriors? 

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I see it. I understand how we got there, I was stationed there for a few years and understand our relations there. I'm simply saying. We had our guys kill a dude and we constantly have Americans doing stupid shit. I think the least we could do is show some actual attempt to fix it. This isn't really an isolated incident. 

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42 minutes ago, GlassEmpty said:

I see it. I understand how we got there, I was stationed there for a few years and understand our relations there. I'm simply saying. We had our guys kill a dude and we constantly have Americans doing stupid shit. I think the least we could do is show some actual attempt to fix it. This isn't really an isolated incident. 

"fix it"?  You mean withdraw all troops from there?  That's what it would take to fix humans.

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1 hour ago, GlassEmpty said:

We had our guys kill a dude

No, we actually didn’t. One of our guys killed a dude on his own. “We” didn’t have “our guys” do jack shit.

1 hour ago, GlassEmpty said:

I think the least we could do is show some actual attempt to fix it.

Please, for the love of God, don’t ever be a commander of anything. I cannot stand narcissistic leadership that convinces itself that it must solve all problems with asinine micromanagement and mass punishment.  Your mentality of “having to do something” causes one to make irrational and emotional decisions that do much more harm than good. Real leaders are much more thoughtful and intelligent than this. This type of leadership has much more to do with the pilot retention crisis than any other single factor.

Incidents like these happen when you have 100k people in your organization. You don’t punish the 99.999% when 0.001% screw up. Unless you’re a dumbass.  Then go right ahead, this Lt Gen will probably just secured his fourth star for this brave stand.

Edited by flyusaf83
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Throwing your people and their families under the bus as a symbolic genuflection/trying to save face with the Japanese doesn’t solve the square root of fuck-all. Do some math.  We’ve got 100k people and their families over there.  Statistically, we are outperforming our national demographic in terms of crime and accidental death.  Whe that’s not the public reply that should be given to our hosts, this is NOT leadership, it’s reactive CYA chickenshit.

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8 hours ago, Bergman said:

Imagine the CEO of Southwest Air Lines telling all 55,000 employees nation-wide that they, or their family members, can’t drink or buy alcohol.  Just for perspective.

Absolutely asinine. We’ve devolved from leadership to management...and now we can only muster “really shitty management.”  FML.  Where’s the exit?

This incident involved .001% of the military people and dependents on Japan.  So let’s punish everyone. 

You mean the $455K bonus isn't enough to keep people dealing with this kind of thing?

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Settle down, chach. I don’t support mass punishment. In fact I’ve said twice, and now a third, I don’t agree with mass punishments such as these. I also said it won’t do anything but effect the level of morale. Please, since you’re on your soap box of what a perfect CC you’d be, enlighten all of us as to what the proper level of action is. I’m amped to actually get a lesson from something who so prophetically has it figured out.

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3 hours ago, GlassEmpty said:

Settle down, chach. I don’t support mass punishment. In fact I’ve said twice, and now a third, I don’t agree with mass punishments such as these. I also said it won’t do anything but effect the level of morale. Please, since you’re on your soap box of what a perfect CC you’d be, enlighten all of us as to what the proper level of action is. I’m amped to actually get a lesson from something who so prophetically has it figured out.

Passive aggressive and blown out of proportion. Nice touch.

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10 hours ago, GlassEmpty said:

We have nearly 100,000 personnel stationed in Japan. Is it really insane to believe  our responses towards fixing our personal f*#k ups matter in international relations? So again, I ask what could actually be done, that would also appease the masses of internet keyboard warriors? 

Punish the guilty?  Charge him with murder; prosecute to max extent allowed by law.  Lock him up and throw away the key.  Done.

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14 hours ago, gearpig said:

"appease our host nation?"

0805ideasjapan_539__1312587734_0025.jpg

Exactly.  I spent 5 years there and love the Japanese people; but was always flabbergasted at how much we bent over backwards, many times at the cost of combat effectiveness, to “appease” the Japanese.  I mean, Yokota’s biggest priority every year was the stupid static display festival.  You want to know how many man hours that consumed??

In no way I am I implying that we shouldn’t be good ambassadors and respect the Japanese but at the end of the day, they lost the war they started and they would be target practice if it weren’t for American presence there. 

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On 11/21/2017 at 1:11 AM, Champ Kind said:

 


So is the restriction for Oki only or all of Japan? I recall similar restrictions years ago but it was only Oki--I don't remember it ever being USFJ-wide. The article says "Japan" but I thought it may be a typo. Not sure what would surprise me less at this point: crappy news reporting or an over-reaching punitive response.

 

On Okinawa proper there is 0 going off base except if you live off base, and then its work-->Home, with some caveats. No drinking, even in your house with the windows shut and light provided by a single flickering candle as it fades slowly, a small but accurate metaphor for you hope and moral. 

If you make it to any of the outlying islands or Japan proper you can be out and about but still no drinking. Passes and local leave has been canceled, but leave off island is still gtg. 

 

And yeah this is to show that we "the Americans" care, and feel bad about what happened. 

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The target audience for this over reaction is not the US military, but the local Okinawan government.  It's an appeasement to show we're doing something.  It just sucks because leadership has to to couch it in terms of responsible drinking, etc, and can't come out and state the real reason for it.

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55 minutes ago, Hodor said:

On Okinawa proper there is 0 going off base except if you live off base, and then its work-->Home, with some caveats. No drinking, even in your house ....

How to give the appearance of doing something while actually doing nothing and get granted "forgiveness" by the people you've pissed off:

Step 1: Ban alcohol and going anywhere off base.

Step 2: Local businesses, namely restaurants all over Okinawa suffer immensely and complain to local officials.

Step 3: Local officials/Governor of Okinawa inform base that's it's cool to release the animals (us) back into genpop.

Oh, and Step 4: Japan based aircrews request permissive to conduct airline interviews and rush guard units.

 

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This is an interesting conversation. The answer is, if you're in Okinawa, you're just a pawn in a much bigger game being played. The government of Japan wants us there but has to placate the Okinawans and convince their own citizens to look the other way. Committing a crime -- any crime -- makes them lose face. So, the U.S. does curfews and punishments. It saves face at the cost of pissing off the pawns who justifiably bitch about it being unfair, but they are pawns and who gives a shit what pawns think.

You guys complain about bad management and poor leaders, but the truth of the matter is, the vast majority of the military will eat shit and ask for seconds no matter how badly you treat them. You can't be that shocked that most leaders will take advantage of that fact.

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2 hours ago, joe1234 said:

This is an interesting conversation. The answer is, if you're in Okinawa, you're just a pawn in a much bigger game being played. The government of Japan wants us there but has to placate the Okinawans and convince their own citizens to look the other way. Committing a crime -- any crime -- makes them lose face. So, the U.S. does curfews and punishments. It saves face at the cost of pissing off the pawns who justifiably bitch about it being unfair, but they are pawns and who gives a shit what pawns think.

You guys complain about bad management and poor leaders, but the truth of the matter is, the vast majority of the military will eat shit and ask for seconds no matter how badly you treat them. You can't be that shocked that most leaders will take advantage of that fact.

Uh huh, all the way until they give big blue the middle finger and laugh on their way to the bank at Delta/Southwest or any other private sector job.  Treat your employees like pawns long enough and they’ll walk. 

You are right about the politics of Okinawa though, but the US military loses everything here.  The government of Japan knows the military leadership will bow over backwards to appease them as indicated time and time again while shitting on their own.  It’s only a matter of time before that can be exploited.

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