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3catwoman3

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64. I lived in Japan for 2 years during my second active duty...

Wed Jan 18, 2023, 11:45 PM

Jan 2023

…tour with the Air Force nurse corps. Single personnel pretty much had to live on base because off-base housing allowance was only given to married personnel, and off-base housing was crazy expensive.

Living on base was like being in a little chunk of America, which was OK, and there was the immediate and endless chances to explore Japan the moment you walked out of the base gates. I left the base as often as I could, and thoroughly enjoyed my 2 years there. Saw and did a lot.

Lots of the folks assigned there complained about how much they hated being in Japan, and they, typically, were the ones who never went off base, so they didn’t really experience Japan. Yokota Air Base, according to Wikipedia, occupies only 2.73 square miles/1763 acres, so it’s not very big. I can’t imagine having spent my whole 2 years there within the confines of the base. Such a wasted opportunity.

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