UNDERSTANDING A DIFFERENT PEOPLE: THE OKINAWAN IDENTITY

When planning for interactions with foreign countries, whether in peace or in war, it can be easy for military planners to be lulled into the false security of the homogeneity of a culture or race or nationality. Many would argue that was exactly what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last two decades. But long before the United States’ most recent conflicts in the Middle East, there was a small island chain in the Pacific known as the Ryukyus that posed a particular challenge to the efforts of WWII Army and Marine planners. A BETTER PEACE welcomes Courtney Short to the virtual studio to discuss her study of the Okinawan people and the experiences of Soldiers and Marines as they invaded the southern-most islands of Japan. Courtney joins our Editor-In-Chief, Jackie Whitt to look at the individual culture and behavior of the Okinawans as U.S. forces moved ashore during a war that would, in some ways, liberate the people of the Ryukyus from centuries of rule by mainland Japan.