Moving Marines

Some of you are already aware of the fact that Okinawa and it's citizens have been pushing for plans to move more than 8,500 Marines from the bases for quite some time. Before even moving out here, we heard they were planning on moving them. However, it hasn't happened yet. There have been various protests and some (not all) locals are highly critical of the U.S. presence here. Locals say the bases are damaging the environment and pushing the crime rate up. They are also not happy about the noise pollution from the planes and I really can't argue that one. We live right by a major flight line and the jets can get preeeety loud.

Here are some pictures of a protest we saw from Andromache's balcony a while back...



Here is an interesting video on the issue...