JAWing On – Life on Okinawa

As I indicated the pipeline situation is of no surprise to me. I have lived on Okinawa for most of the past 32 years. During the time on Okinawa, I spent one year as a dependent daughter, two and one-half years as a civilian Sofa status employee, three and one-half years as active duty Air Force, and the rest as a regular registered alien – living the same situations and on the same economy as every other resident of the island, only as a foreigner. So what happened the other night DID come as a surprise. Taki and I were at a local shopping area when he decided to stop in at a KFC for take-out. While he ran inside, I waited in our vehicle. Suddenly there was a local national banging and shaking the rear of the vehicle. Thinking he was probably just intoxicated, I yelled through the window that he was making a mistake that it was not his car. He just kept accosting the vehicle with a blank stare on his face. I quickly locked the doors, and he stopped hitting the car then fell to the ground. After a few seconds, I cautiously propped my door and peeked to make sure he wasn’t having a heart attack or epileptic fit. But he was just sitting on the ground behind the vehicle. So I closed my door and he started attacking the car again. Then I took out my cell phone and began to dial Taki. He yelled something then straightened his jacket and walked off like a normal person strolling in the parking lot. A few moments later Taki returned and I began to tell him about the strange encounter. Suddenly he spotted the man attacking another woman’s vehicle as she was trying to pull out of the parking lot. Luckily for the woman another local man, Taki, I, and some other concerned citizens were able to remove him from the vehicle and she departed. Once again he just straightened his jacket and strolled in the parking lot. I’ve never seen such an openly outrageous act of behavior by a local national in a public area before this incident. One has to wonder if this is to become a more frequent occurence.