Okinawa Quotes

When the teachers arrived at Okinawa (then under United States control) the Marines were waiting at the dock. They told us where the parties were. We could have gone to a party every single night. - Joan Jacobson

The desire to see Okinawa returned to Japan developed into a broad national consensus among our people. - Eisaku Sato

One big goal of this realignment was to reduce the burden on the people of Okinawa, and our thought is to carry this out as quickly as possible. Our burden was unavoidable in order to speed up the process. - Shinzo Abe

Leading politicians, including Prime Minister Hashimoto, realize the central government has not been treating Okinawa well for a long time. - Haruo Shimada

Japan's alliance with the U.S. will only grow in importance amid the increasingly difficult security situation surrounding our country, thus I think it is necessary to keep the marines in Okinawa, a geographically strategic location from the standpoint of maintaining deterrence. - Yoshihiko Noda

It was the decision of then Prime Minister Eisaku Sato that Japan would pay (the $4 million) as long as Okinawa would be returned. - Bunroku Yoshino

In order to maintain the solid Japan-U.S. structure, it is essential to secure social and political stability in Okinawa. - Keiichi Inamine

I want to show the people in Okinawa what kind of burden reduction there will be. It's going to be a very large scale reduction... in the thousands. - Nobutaka Machimura

I put it out on the Web. I didn't think it would draw the level of response it did. I started getting e-mails from everywhere -- Bosnia, Okinawa, everywhere you could imagine. - Michael Marks