"The mobility of the US military is certainly impressive. But more than that, I think the significance of having troops stationed in Japan for so long is that there are people who can say things like this. The most important thing is that there are people there who are aware of the existence of various barriers," says Kasamatsu.
Sendai Airport Building President <strong>Katsuhiko Ito</strong>
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Sendai Airport Building President Katsuhiko Ito
On April 13th, a flight from Haneda landed. Although scars remain here and there, "we will return domestic flight capacity to pre-disaster levels by July 25th, just before the summer vacation," said remove background image President Ito. However, neither Mr. Kasamatsu nor the US military commanders, who left the airport building without leaving a single piece of trash behind, witnessed the landing with their own eyes.
"I was impressed by the agility of the Marines, even though they were my subordinates, and I was also inspired by the Japanese people."
Looking back on the experience, Kozeniski says he will be leaving Japan this July.
"One day I want to buy a plane ticket and go to Sendai Airport. Then I want to rent a car and go around the places where I've worked."
It seems that Kasamatsu is also deeply touched by this.
"We received a lot of emails from the US military. 'When are the civilian planes leaving?' 'It's the 13th.' 'Will there be a ceremony?' 'No.' 'What time will the TV start?' 'It's 4pm.' 'Thank you. I'll celebrate by watching it with my wife and drinking beer.' One of the Special Operations Commanders said, 'No, no one needs to know we were there. But I want to see it through to the end. I'm alone today, so I'll watch the civilian planes fly over while drinking a beer.'"
*All information was provided at the time of magazine publication.