Tuesday night, my wife, daughter, and I sat at home watching a movie on American Forces Network – the television programming provider for military bases overseas. They broadcast U.S. network programming through the on-base cable network, with most channels on a two-week delay, and a couple of 24-hour cable news networks ran live. A small slice of home while living overseas.
I was the general manager for the Asia-Pacific region of Stars and Stripes, the daily newspaper for American military service members stationed abroad. As a 43-year-old civilian, I lived on Yokota Air Base, a U.S. Air Force installation in Fussa-shi, Japan, 30 miles from downtown Tokyo.
Yokota was a small city to itself with a population of 14,000 – military service members, civilians like me, and our families. It was an idyllic, Norman Rockwell kind of community. Peaceful, organized, harmonious and with 100 percent full employment. The base contained schools for the kids of US military and civilian staff. Shopping …
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