sarra + japan = ?

It is important to know that the United States has a large military presence in Okinawa. With bases occupying 18% of the main island, Okinawa hosts two-thirds of the 40,000 American forces in Japan. For the first 13 months of living here, I focused on the negatives (noise pollution, environmental degradation, marines are assholes).

And then I met some. And some of them were assholes.

But some of them were sweet. One of them was sweet.

His name was more unusual than mine and I loved the sensation of saying it, the way it still feels when I whisper it under my breath. In March, I met him on a dance floor and he worked his way into my life, while I laughed at his constant phone calls.

He listened to Shane Koyczan and quoted the best words back to me and then there’s you and I want to kiss you so bad. We played tourist and trespasser and a friend from home said, Uncle Sam pays for that body and I appreciated it. He introduced me to humour I’d never appreciated and I introduced him to yakiniku. He surprised me with Starbursts and made me
feel appreciated.

And then he didn’t. As he drifted away, as 20 years old do, I tried to convince myself that this was still a Good Relationship, even as I was tempted by a man who was so opposite – and who I would later give into. We broke up without an explanation from him; when I would see him months later, he still could not explain.

The military presence in Okinawa is complicated and that is an understatement. But I have learned an appreciation for Americans that I have, in part, a 20-year-old Marine to thank for.