Some time in October of '86, I went to the Japanese island of Kyushu.
A brigade-size element had been deployed there for joint training with the JGSDF (Japanese Ground Self Defense Force).
I learned a few things I'd never thought about before:
- Orion looks the same in Japan as it does in Hawaii.
- Forested mountains are beautiful everywhere.
- People everywhere want pretty much the same things.
A lot of drinking went on during down times. Compai! We mingled. We traded things. We "Indian wrestled". But there wasn't much verbal communication. Except for one guy...
One of the translators spoke to us with not much accent at all. Apparently he had the advantage of not learning English in school but by listening to Beatles albums.
When I was in chorus years ago, I did learn several pieces in Latin. I still remember the words and my part of O Boney Jesu, but I don't know what those words mean.
Other than the field exercise, ceremonies, and interacting with the Japanese soldiers, we did normal, every day things. We did laundry. We marched. We worked in the motor pool. We pulled guard duty on our equipment at night.
We had enough people in our unit that I only had to pull guard once.
It was perhaps a half mile from Tent City to our motor pool going through the camp then on to a lonely gravel track.
I passed trough the camp then by the MP motor pool which was closest to everything.
The track was a cut in the side of a hill with small cliffs on both sides - one up, one down. There were trees on both sides.
As I was going through this area, I saw an old man shuffling up the hill going in the same direction I was.
He was stooped over carrying some kind of heavy load. He was not in uniform and I thought that to be odd as I had never seen any of the other soldiers who were not.
The moon was up and I had a good view of him. I thought he was dressed like a peasant from their times past.
I heard a vehicle behind me and turned to look to see if they were going to turn off or I world have to move to the edge of the road.
When they turned off, I found myself alone. The old man was gone. I had only turned away from him briefly.
There was nowhere that he could have gone.
I checked during daylight and saw there were no paths going up or down from where we were. There was only three road.
Two hours later, my relief came up.
"Man, you ain't gonna believe what I just saw," he said.
"Let me guess." I related what I'd seen to him. He said that he had the same experience.
I don't know what we saw that that night. A ghost?
I didn't ask around so I don't know whether anyone else saw it or not.
Screenshot from Google Maps.