US Marine Corps added another bad reputation in Japan. One
grenade landed outside of Yausubetsu Training Area, Hokkaido, during the
artillery exercise on Tuesday. Since the landed point was quite close to a
national highway, even though no victim has been reported, residents get more
worried about the exercise. Marine halted the exercise to inquire the reason of
false strike.
The exercise was live-fire training of artillery started on
Monday. Marine missed one grenade and found it outside of the training area, the
point where seven hundred meters from national highway Route 272. Since it was
the land owned by the national government of Japan, there was no damage on any
private property. But, the governor of Hokkaido, Harumi Takahashi, requested the
Ministry of Defense to ask Marine stopping the training for investigation.
Marine accepted it.
In the answer to questions from regional newspaper, Hokkaido
Shimbun, Marine admitted that the accident was caused by wrong operation of
safety measures by two servicemen. “Marine takes this accident seriously and
put priority on the safety of the troops and local community. We want to reduce
the local impact,” described the answer.
However, the people are frustrated with the delay of
response from Marine and the Ministry of Defense of Japan. The report of the
accident was brought from the ministry to the local town office two and half
hours after it had happened. There had been a few exchanges of information,
through e-mail, between the ministry and Marine after the accident. There have
been reported a number of wildfires caused by the exercise in Yausubetsu.
Ranchers around the training area are skeptical about security measures taken
by Marine.
The exercise was originally taken in Okinawa. To reduce the
burden in Okinawa, it was dispersed to several places in Japan, including
Yausubetsu, in 1997. Even though Hokkaido is relatively rich in abandoned
lands, there are people’s daily lives just outside of military training area,
far different from the situation of military bases in State of Texas or Washington.
This is something difficult for US military to understand the closeness between
military and civil lives in Japan.
The accident in Yausubetsu also revealed the deterioration
of skill of Marine. Is it an overestimation that the accident was a result of
cutting military budget in US Congress? Reduced budget affects not only to
procurement, but also morale of personnel. It is better for Marine or other US
troops to thoroughly review its exercises in Japan to maintain its reliability.
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