U. S. Forces Japan comprises about 50,000 service members, and their presence has been a source of tension among local residents for years.
U. S. service members on Okinawa have been banned from drinking and restricted to base or their off-base residences after a crash involving a Marine in which a local man died.
In addition, all U. S. service members on mainland Japan are prohibited from buying or consuming alcohol on or off base.
Alcohol may have been a factor in the crash, which occurred before dawn Sunday in Naha, in Okinawa prefecture, the U. S. military said. The U. S. government-funded Voice of America quoted local police as saying the Marine’s blood-alcohol level registered three times the legal limit during a breath test.
Police on the southern Japanese island reportedly arrested a 21-year-old Marine on suspicion of drunken driving, The Associated Press reported, citing Kazuhiko Miyagi of the Okinawa police. That information could not immediately be confirmed by NBC News.
A photo of the scene showed the local man’s small truck crumpled into an almost unrecognizable heap of twisted metal.
U. S. Forces Japan comprises about 50,000 U. S. service members, about half of them on Okinawa, and their presence has been a source of tension among local residents for years.
