Tag: Kadena Airbase

North Korea gets all the media attention with their ballistic missile tests, but China quietly over the past decade has developed far more advanced ballistic missiles than anything the Kim regime has. This movement of aircraft at Kadena Airbase is evidence of that reality:

The Air Force move to replace F-15 Eagle fighters with rotating units of more advanced fighters signals awareness that Okinawan bases won’t survive a conflict with China, according to a former Marine fighter pilot and diplomat.

A two-year phased withdrawal of two squadrons flying the supersonic aircraft from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, began Nov. 1, soon after the release of the new U.S. National Defense Strategy highlighting China as the American military’s “pacing” challenge.

“You can look at it (removal of the F-15s) as the USAF coming to grips with the reality that nothing on the first island chain, especially not Kadena, will be survivable in a conflict with China,” Steve Ganyard, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, told Stars and Stripes in an email Friday.

China’s massive military build-up includes an expanding arsenal of missiles with many of the weapons presumed to be aimed at U.S. bases in Japan. A 2017 report by Navy Cmdr. Thomas Shugart, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, for example, includes satellite imagery of Chinese missile test sites that appear to mimic Yokota, Kadena and Misawa air bases.

Around a dozen F-22 Raptor jets arrived on Okinawa Nov. 4 from the 3rd Wing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, to start a six-month rotation while the F-15s head home. The Air Force described the Raptors as “backfill” for the retiring F-15s while the Defense Department decides on a long-term plan to fulfill its obligations to Japan.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Another servicemember going to jail for a sex crime related offense:

An airman stationed at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa pleaded guilty and another is scheduled for a court-martial on charges of making and distributing indecent recordings without the subject’s consent.

Senior Airman Dante Torello of the 353rd Special Operations Group pleaded guilty Feb. 3 to videoing his victim’s genitalia without consent and distributing the recording, according to the court docket. A photo of Torello released in June 2019 by Kadena’s 18th Wing described him as a loadmaster for the group’s 1st Special Operations Squadron.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but there is another airman awaiting trial who was the person giving oral sex without consent that Torello was videotaping.

This soldier’s commander must have gave himself a facepalm after getting the phone call about this:

Two people who live and work at Kadena Air Base are suspected of making off with nearly $65,000 in the armed robbery of a currency exchange shop on Okinawa.

The business, which isn’t far from Camp Foster’s front gate, was robbed by two mask-wearing perpetrators about 4 p.m. Tuesday, according to an Okinawa Police spokesman who spoke on a customary condition of anonymity.

One or both of the suspects went behind the shop’s counter while brandishing a knife-like object, threatened an employee and demanded money, the spokesman said. They ran out with $64,700 in Japanese and U.S. currency. No one was injured.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see how much of a grip the coronavirus gets in a tropical location like Okinawa:

The 18th Wing has confirmed its first case of coronavirus, according to a message posted Saturday on Kadena Air Base’s official Facebook page.

“The member is active duty Air Force and has been in restriction of movement status for 15 days since returning from overseas travel,” the message said.

“18th Wing leadership and medical teams are tracking this situation very closely and have determined the only close contacts to be immediate family members who are also in restriction of movement status.“

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here we go with yet another dress code controversy; it seems to me that school uniforms would solve all this:

A dress code imposed at a Defense Department middle school on Okinawa in August discriminates against female students, according to a complaint filed by parents with the Department of Education.The complaint — filed Jan. 10 with the department’s Office of Civil Rights — alleges gender discrimination at Ryukyu Middle School, a Department of Defense Education Activity school at Kadena Air Base.

It seeks to remedy what six parents say is an outdated dress code, according to the complaint and the parents’ attorney, Crista Kraics.

The complaint alleges that Principal Lee Ann Mik discriminated against female students by singling them out for their attire and removing them from class. The parents deemed their children’s attire “appropriate.”

Girls were singled out for wearing loose athletic pants with no zipper while boys were permitted to wear basketball shorts, according to the complaint. Girls were also criticized for shirts that weren’t long enough and for showing “collar bone.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but it seems to me that as long as the boys were not allowed to wear zipperless pants and girls were allowed to wear basketball shorts as well that the policy is not discriminatory.

It is horrible what happened to this spouse, but if the military had to pay $5 million to everyone that was sexually assaulted there would not be a military for much longer:

Then-Amn. Justin S. and his wife, Bethany, arrived at Kadena Air Base in Japan Oct. 6, 2017, for his first duty assignment. They were excited to begin their life in the Air Force, and eager to meet their fellow airmen at Kadena, Justin’s top pick for his initial assignment.

But all that ended the next day, when their official, assigned sponsor — then-Senior Amn. Steven Newt — coaxed them to a booze-soaked barbecue at his house and pressured Justin to drink. After Justin, Bethany and most of the other party-goers had gone to sleep, Newt was caught groping and kissing Bethany’s unconscious body.

Newt pleaded guilty last October to Bethany’s sexual assault and is now serving time in jail, but the events of that night traumatized her and left her suffering from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress requiring therapy, she said. (……)

So far, Bethany has been fighting an uphill battle with the Air Force. Last November, she filed a personal injury claim seeking $5 million from the Air Force. But in May, the Air Force Legal Operations Agency denied her claim.

Air Force Times

You can read more at the link, but I would be surprised if the Air Force did not look into how the perpetrator’s command chose unit sponsors for newly arriving airmen. Did the perpetrator have past misconduct that should have raised red flags? Having a substandard airman be a newly arriving airman’s first impression of their unit is probably not a good thing. Also was there any unit policy to not take new airmen to drinking parties after arrival? Simple policies like this may have been able to prevent what happened.

Here is another power tip which will be called “victim blaming”, but I call common sense, do not ever get blackout drunk with people you don’t know. So many of these sexual assaults are alcohol related. You have to be careful because even the military has it share of creeps like this perpetrator who is now fortunately rotting in jail and has to register as a sex offender after his release.