My brother served in Okinawa for a year as a corpsman for the Navy. He worked mostly with psychiatric cases (he was based in the Psych Ward at the hospital in Great Lakes, IL before that--he's now the health tech on submarines), and he told me at the time that the Marines based out there tended to be under considerable stress. Apparently most of the men are living in close quarters; unlike other non-combat deployments, most of them were separated from their families. He told me the biggest problem was alcoholism. At the time, he described it as a lot of battle-ready troops who are constantly engaged in various training exercises, but have little to do with their downtime except drink beer by the caseload.

I don't know if any other Fraysters have served out there, but I was wondering if this description sounds familiar, and if it may be a contributing factor to what seems to me to be a rather high and disturbing number of cases of violence and rape based in that one location.

My uncle, who was a Marine during the Korean War but was never sent into combat (actually was assigned to the Mediterranean), basically described it as, "you turn 18 year old horny boys into weapons and make them part of an elite killing machine, then make them while away the hours preparing for combat and never sending them in. They get into trouble that way..."

I guess that's one argument for sending our boys to war. Let them kill some enemies before they start killing each other.

I was never stationed at Okinawa but I was TDY there. I did have a similar remote assignment in Korea where I was stationed away from my family for a year.

Being in a country so different than the US where the language is almost impossible to grasp and on an island is stressful.

Having said that, Okinawa is beautiful and the people are incredibly polite. The living quarters are no more cramped than any other remote assignment. The airbase nearby has a Chilie's for Christ sake. Every assignment is what you make of it. If you chose to be drunk and miserable you will be. In Korea a great number of people chose to be drunk and miserable. I chose to see the country. How high-stress can an assignment be where you aren't being shot at? Naturally traveling does eat into your drinking funds.

I was also stationed in Italy and young troops complained about that. I heard it all. I hate Italians. I can't get a slurpee at 2am. Why can't I do spin-outs in the piazza? We saved their asses in WWII so they owe me the right to insult them, throw up, trash their cars, etc, etc, etc. Someday they'll pay a lot of money to go back to Italy.

My personal opinion about the violence on Okinawa is that it is an island. It can feel claustrophobic. It's also oriental and the traditional opinion of orientals is that they are to be used. You take young kids, fill their heads full of stories about juicy girls and how you can get whatever you want and there are bound to be frustrations when reality hits them in the face. Yes there are lots of exercises, there are also degree programs, volunteer work, gym facilities, libraries, and other things. You're only limited by your imagination or lack of.