Sprucing Up Marines’ Image in Japan

The Japanese women wore pearls, the U.S. Marines sported spit-shined shoes and spiffy uniforms. And thus the counteroffensive began.

Cpl. Craig Politte, 26, scored points by cheerfully briefing Sachiko Yasuda on the intricacies of Marine Corps hair regulations after she asked why all of his male comrades at a recent reception sported similar buzz cuts.

“In basic training, ma’am, everyone is shaved bald,” he replied with a grin, adding a bit of Marine-speak: “After you join the fleet Marine force, you go faded zero to three inches.”

Never mind that Yasuda’s elegant English didn’t extend to Marine jargon; she was charmed. “They are just like my sons,” declared the beaming woman, the granddaughter of diplomats and the wife of an international businessman. “Nice people are nice people.”

It appears the U.S. Marines have regained some ground in their battle to move beyond the rape of an Okinawan schoolgirl involving two of their comrades and a Navy seaman last year. In an effort to heal the wounds and turn attention to the benefits the forces bring to Japan, a private Japanese citizens group treated 40 Marines based in Okinawa to a tour of Tokyo last week--highlighted by the opening reception hosted by First Lady Kumiko Hashimoto.

U.S. officials were privately chagrined that Japanese leaders did not publicly defend the American presence after the rape, which kicked off the largest anti-military protests in three decades. But the program for “Welcome Marine 96,” which organizers hope to make an annual event, represents what they hope will be a turnabout.

The event was the brainchild of political journalist Reiko Tamura, who wanted to see with her own eyes the reputedly fearsome Marines. What she found, however, were serious young men who told her they would spill their blood to defend Japan--answers that touched and transformed her.

When she learned that many Marines earn little more than $700 a month, and send as much as half of that back to their families, Tamura enlisted the support of such luminaries as Mrs. Hashimoto to create the Welcome program.

“What we wanted to do was erase ill feelings and persuade the public that the Marines are disciplined and working hard,” Mrs. Hashimoto said. In remarks before the crowd of former Cabinet members, ambassadors and spouses of Japan’s corporate czars, Hashimoto said she felt compelled to act after watching her husband--Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto--labor to improve U.S.-Japan security ties.

Nevertheless, the embattled Marines are hardly safe from verbal snipers. More voices are calling for the reduction of forces in Okinawa--if not now, then as soon as tensions on the Korean peninsula are alleviated. Plans to relocate a Marine heliport from the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station to a site near the Marines’ Camp Schwab on the eastern coast of the island remain technologically uncertain and politically unpopular; a protest being planned for later this month is expected to draw between 10,000 and 20,000 demonstrators.

On Okinawa itself, where 17,000 Marines make up the bulk of the 28,000 U.S. service personnel based on the balmy southern island, some Okinawans still harbor fearful--even wildly exaggerated--images of the Marines.

While most Marines rave about the warmth and hospitality of Okinawans, language barriers, Japan’s high cost of living, busy base schedules and relatively short tours of duty make it difficult to forge deep friendships with local people, except for those who work on base.

Minoru Afuso, a 40-year-old politician from the area around the Marine base at Camp Hansen near the town of Kin, is still spooked by memories of a Japanese man killed by brick-wielding Marines several years ago. To him, Marines are men who “are far away from their motherland and are emotionally unstable.”

“They are capable of killing people because they get that kind of training,” Afuso said. “I feel scared.”

Chosei Tomimori, who runs a nightclub near Camp Hansen, said Marine brawls are actually more manageable than those by Japanese guests because the soldiers don’t attack the hostesses or owners. But he added, “I heard a rumor that American delinquents get a choice between going to a reformatory or joining the Marines.”

The prefectural government reports that overall crime by Americans--troops and civilians--has dropped significantly, from more than 300 arrests annually during the 1970s to 98 in 1994. Women’s groups, however, say that most rapes are not reported.

The Marines who visited Tokyo last week didn’t seem much like the hired killers some in Okinawa imagine. Cpl. James Franklin Bell, 23, trained in reconnaissance as a scout sniper, says he likes to work out and read Tom Clancy novels on base during his spare time. “I lead a kind of boring life,” he said.

At a dinner to meet ordinary Japanese folk, Sgt. Douglas Bowens, 24, was telling the Koichi Ito family that the Marines kept him away from drugs and crime. “I’ve never even been drunk,” he said proudly.

The family was startled--but impressed. “The Japanese people have been living under the protection of the Marines for a long time, and it makes me mad at other Japanese that just one incident like that [the rape] could make them completely forget that,” Naoko Ito said.

Of course, she doesn’t have to live with the aggravations the U.S. forces cause in Okinawa, which hosts the largest Marine base outside the United States--and 75% of all American military facilities in Japan. Despite an agreement last week to return about 21% of the U.S.-occupied land to Okinawans and reduce such nuisances as noise, live-fire training and parachute drops, more voices are calling for a reduction in forces.

In a recent paper, Lt. Gen. William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, advocated withdrawing the Marines and replacing them with an Army unit on the northern island of Hokkaido to avoid sending a message of military retreat to the rest of the world. Asian specialists such as Chalmers Johnson of the Japan Pacific Research Institute and Larry Niksch of the Congressional Research Office say the stubborn refusal to meet Okinawan desires for a force reduction could jeopardize the entire U.S. presence in Japan, as occurred when American forces were ejected from the Philippines.

Robert Hamilton, a former artillery battery commander in Okinawa from 1986 to 1988, said some of the Marines should leave for another reason: The crowded island is a “terrible training place.” And it’s getting worse as political restrictions on live-firing exercises and the like increase, he said.

Hamilton advocates keeping all logistics-related personnel in Okinawa but abandoning the island as a training location. Instead, he said, Marines could be rotated through Hawaii, Hokkaido, South Korea, Thailand and other locations under a series of training agreements.

He believes that the diminished training opportunities available in Okinawa directly lead to rowdy behavior because the aggressive young men are not sufficiently worn out. At the Marine base in Twentynine Palms, he said, “My commander’s motto was, ‘Keep ‘em tired.’ ”

Some Japanese political heavyweights are also beginning to speak up. In July, Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Koichi Kato told U.S. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake that the two nations “should be able to work toward reducing the number of Marines in Okinawa” as North Korea emerges from international isolation, according to the Japanese news service Kyodo.

But Brig. Gen. J. Michael Hayes, commanding officer of the Marines in Japan, disagrees. Even after the Korean peninsula settles down, he said, the Marines “need to be in the Western Pacific, and right now that means in Japan.”

Hayes said that generous Japanese support makes it cheaper to base the forces here; that the flexibility and speed the Marines offer are an irreplaceable asset to regional security; and that their presence offers the “reassurance and stability” needed for economic growth.

“By far, the biggest challenge . . . is to articulate to people that security needs here transcend Korea,” Hayes said.

While grand security strategies are being crafted in government and military offices, last week the 40 visiting Marines were concentrating on getting to know the foreign nation they have pledged to defend to the death. They toured the Imperial Palace, visited parliament, shopped at the Akihabara electronics mecca, visited a temple and ate tempura in a traditional Japanese restaurant.

And their Japanese hosts put a real face, finally, to the sometimes fearful stereotype.

For Kyoto Iwata, that face belonged to Anthony Givens, a lance corporal from Tennessee. At the reception, he told her he wants to go back to college and get a business degree after he leaves the Marines.

Does he miss his country? she asked. “Yes, ma’am, but I’m enjoying your culture,” Givens replied.

Does he miss his family? “Yes, ma’am, but it’s my duty.”

Chiaki Kitada and Elizabeth Lazarowitz of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.