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6 days ago | 
stripes.com | Brian McElhiney |Keishi Koja
This T-shirt was discovered near human skeletal remains found on Camp Schwab, Okinawa, on March 21, 2024. (Okinawa Prefectural Police) Human bones discovered more than a year ago at a Marine Corps base on Okinawa belong to a local man who went missing in 2018, according to Japanese police.
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6 days ago | 
stripes.com | Brian McElhiney |Keishi Koja
An F-15E Strike Eagle taxis down the runway after arriving at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, on April 6, 2025. (Karina Lopez/U.S. Air Force) An F-15E Strike Eagle deployed to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa lost a tire while taxiing on the runway Thursday, according to the 18th Wing. The multirole fighter was conducting a taxi check when it experienced a “tire malfunction,” wing spokeswoman Maj. Alli Stormer said in an email Friday.
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1 week ago | 
stripes.com | Brian McElhiney |Keishi Koja
Japan's Ministry of Defense plans to relocate its Osprey fleet to a new camp on Kyushu island by August 2025. (Japan Ground Self-Defense Force) Japan’s fleet of V-22 Ospreys will move this summer to a permanent base on Kyushu, keeping to a schedule the Ministry of Defense announced two years ago, according to Defense Minister Gen Nakatani.
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1 week ago | 
stripes.com | Brian McElhiney |Keishi Koja
A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 taxis on a runway at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Jan. 26, 2025. (Johnny Diaz/U.S. Air Force) A Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II that made a precautionary landing at a Japanese airport last month is having parts replaced at the airport more than 20 days later, according to the service.
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1 week ago | 
stripes.com | Brian McElhiney |Keishi Koja
The police station in Naha, Okinawa, is pictured on April 14, 2025. (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes) NAHA, Okinawa — Japanese police arrested two U.S. service members on Okinawa over the weekend in separate incidents — one on suspicion of breaking into a retirement home and the other of assaulting a Japanese man.
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1 week ago | 
stripes.com | Brian McElhiney |Keishi Koja
Japan Air Self-Defense Force pilots scrambled a record 23 times against Chinese drones during the past Japanese fiscal year, which runs from April to March, compared to eight times during the same period in fiscal 2023. (Japan Joint Staff) China last year sent more drones to probe Japanese airspace than in any previous year, part of an overall increase in scrambles against foreign military aircraft, according to Japan’s Joint Staff.
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1 week ago | 
stripes.com | Brian McElhiney |Keishi Koja
U.S. Marines patrol American Village bars in Chatan, Okinawa, Aug. 2, 2024. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes) CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — U.S. service members will join Japanese police and local officials for the first joint patrol on Okinawa in more than half a century following a series of high-profile criminal cases involving American troops.
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2 weeks ago | 
stripes.com | Brian McElhiney |Keishi Koja
Japan Ground Self-Defense Force troops defused this U.S.-made shell believed to be from World War II after removing it from a construction site in Naha city, Okinawa, April 5, 2025. (Naha city, Okinawa) Japanese troops recently removed and neutralized three World War II-era U.S. artillery shells uncovered at construction sites across southern Okinawa and detonated another offshore, according to local officials.
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2 weeks ago | 
stripes.com | Brian McElhiney |Keishi Koja
A U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton assigned to Unmanned Patrol Squadron 19 takes off from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Oct. 5, 2022. (David Getz/U.S. Marine Corps) U.S. Navy surveillance drones are returning to Okinawa six months after their last deployment to the island in response to heightening tensions with China, according to Japan’s Ministry of Defense.
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3 weeks ago | 
stripes.com | Keishi Koja |Brian McElhiney
Miyako Airport and surrounding Miyakojima city, in the Sakashima islands, Okinawa prefecture, Japan, in an undated photo. (Okinawa prefecture) An updated plan recently released by the Japanese government details how and where it will move 120,000 people from the country’s long chain of westernmost islands in the event of a military attack or other emergency.
