duty stations

Jes at Bleu Dress and Dress Blues is my next guest poster.   I will be dividing her post into two because of all the wonderful information she has 🙂

 Camp Zama is a teeny, tiny Army base located about 25 miles SW of Tokyo, Japan.  Most people have never heard of it, I hadn’t until we got orders {I actually have a soldier with 25 years service under his belt tell me that I was making it up because he didn’t think we had soldiers on mainland Japan, lol}.  It is home to about 10 units, including U.S. Army Japan(USAR-J)/I CORPS FWD.  I don’t know exact numbers but if I had to guess I’d say there are less than 800 soldiers, maybe about 1500 civilians and probably close to 2000 local national employees on base.  Unless you get permission from the General {yes, the, we only have one}, soldiers and civilians are required to live on post so it’s kind of like living in a fish bowl in the middle of Japan.  Most of the time, this is great, I love living in a community where  everybody knows your name but it’s also a breeding ground for massive amounts of “Zama Drama”. {If you were wondering how Zama is pronounced, well, it rhymes with drama!}

we have been blessed with some of the most amazing neighbors ever here!

Our community includes the main base {Zama}, Sagamihara Housing Area {SHA} and the Sagami Depot.  Most of the families live on Zama or SHA with a few {less than a dozen} residing at the Depot.  I have never actually been to the Depot so I know very little about it.  On SHA you will find family housing, the elementary school that serves SHA + Zama, and our state of the art, just installed, digital movie theater {it’s the 1^st one of it’s caliber in on a military installation in Japan and it’s been a big deal for us.  It means we get movies IMMEDIATELY once they’re released in the US instead of having to wait for the film to be delivered weeks or months after it premiers in America}.  Zama, which is where almost all of the units are located, contains family and single soldier housing, the small PX, the mail room and post office, the community club, a GREAT travel office, a bowling alley, a golf course {apparently one of the best on any base instillation around the world…but I wouldn’t know!}, a vet, a high school that serves not only Zama + SHA but also Naval Air Facility Atsugi which is located about 30 minutes from here and the clinic {we don’t have a hospital here}.  Both areas have very small commissaries {the one on Zama only has 4 aisles…it’s tiny!}, a gym, a food court, day care, and a chapel.

One of the things that I think separates us from other bases I’ve been to is our community club.  Our base cannot support both an enlisted and officers club so we just have the one and, believe it or not, PEOPLE USE IT!  ALL THE TIME!  The place is always busy.  I’ve never seen a community club that has as much consistent business as ours does.  It’s a great facility run by a couple of great guys.  I also think it may have to do with the fact that it’s one of the few places to eat American food outside of your home.  If you want American food here and you don’t want to cook, your options are the food court {Popeye’s, BK, Subway and Anthony’s pizza}, the golf course, bowling alley, DFAC, or the community club.  The options get old REALLY fast!

To be continued…

Hey! I’m Kara and I blog over at Ramblings of a Marine Wife. In case, you didn’t notice, my husband is a Marine and we are currently stationed in Okinawa. We have 2 kids, our son is almost 7 and our daughter is 3. Our last duty station was Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. Hubby hated it, I liked it, but I’m from Missouri. However, we both agree that we absolutely love Okinawa!

Okinawa is a sub-tropical island in the Pacific Ocean. It’s roughly 950 miles southwest of Tokyo and 400 miles east of Taipai and yes, it is a relatively small island. It’s 877 square miles and only about 70 miles long. It’s easy to drive from one end to the other in a day, even with the traffic and slower speed limits. However, there is a ton to do here! I was a little worried about being landlocked, but not once have I felt the need to get outta here because of Okinawa’s size. I also didn’t realize how absolutely gorgeous this island would be.

There are bases all over the island, one Army, one Air Force, a couple Navy, and the rest Marine Corps. Of the ten plus bases, only 7 have housing. For the most part, they will put you in housing near where you work, but not necessarily on the same base. We lived on base when we first got here and were pretty far from hubby’s work, but only because we picked our house over another. Now we live in town and we picked that too, based on school districts, and we just liked the house we are in.

This island is great for families. We’ve been here almost 2 years and I’m still finding new places to go and things to see. The island has a lot of touristy spots, including a couple zoos, an aquarium, numerous memorials and museums dedicated to WWII, castle ruins, and more beaches than I could count. We have also found some pretty neat parks. The Japanese don’t build playgrounds like we do! Theirs are way better! The military MWR’s and MCCS are also good about constantly having stuff going on.

If you do like to vacation, the military has a resort, Okuma. There are also nice hotels in town. But, then again, we are in Asia. Why not fly to your country of choice? We haven’t gone anywhere yet, but I have friends (that I’m extremely jealous of) that have gone to mainland Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, and probably more places I’m forgetting.

I have found that Okinawa is either a place you love or you hate. If you get out and enjoy the island and the culture, you will come to love it. Never leave base and you will come to resent being here. I love it (my blog will testify to that) and would love to stay longer, but I think my family would kill me.