Uncle Sam: Do you know where your soldiers are?

One of my Okinawa friends gave a party, and when she woke up the next morning, she noticed an extra pair of shoes in the entryway. [note: in Japan, everyone takes off their shoes when they enter the house and leaves them in the entryway until they leave] She figured one of the guests probably walked home wearing house slippers instead of shoes. It happens sometimes.

However, when she went into the living room, surprise! There was the guest, sound asleep on the couch. She set an extra place at the breakfast table, and they all shared a laugh with the guest who forgot to go home.

It’s a cute story that will surely be retold with a merry twinkle in the eye for years to come.

How about this version?

In another part of Okinawa, a family woke up to find a uniformed US Marine asleep on their sofa—big, smelly, and drunk as the proverbial skunk. What do you do when you, as pater familias, tip the scale at a little over a hundred pounds, and there is a 300-pound uninvited guest who doesn’t speak your language snoring in your family’s living room?

That is a problem no one should have to face in a country that is at peace. But it happened, just the other day.