I don’t want to write this series.
I’ve put it off for almost a year, but I really have no good reason. It’s not like I had an awful experience in Japan. No PTSD, no harrowing missions, nothing more exciting than a 7.0M aftershock…the work I did, in retrospect, seems almost insignificant. But for some reason, the idea refuses to die. A few days ago, I started seeing articles regarding how the debris from the 11 Mar tsunami is now reaching North American shores. Evidently it’s made landfall in the Pacific Northwest already, and set to hit Alaska in the next couple of weeks. So here I am, halfway across the world, and the tsunami is literally following me. I guess it’s time, so without any further ado, let’s begin.
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21 Mar 11, Narita Airport, Japan
It’s been ten days since the quake and resulting tsunami. The Japanese are now calling it something: Higashi Nihon Daishinsai. The rough translation is “Great East Japan Earthquake and Disaster.” But from my little window in first class, nothing I see suggests this place was hit by one of the strongest quakes on record. Japan, so far, looks like what I remember. Busy. Rainy. Crowded.
I am exhausted. The past week has stretched me to my limits. Once we learned of my grandmother’s death, Jen and I flew my sister Lydia out from Seattle so she could spend Spring Break with us as opposed to alone. Wheels were in motion to deploy me to the US-led relief effort, so I was unable to take any time off from work. Things were frenetic, as I spent days on the phone, trying to negotiate the system, then hustling home to spend some time with Jen and Lydia. I’ve been up for nearly 36 hours at this point. Lyd flew out early from Charlotte, so we drove up there to drop her off, turned around, and went to the airport in Columbia and Jen dropped me off. I’ve spent the entire flight immersing myself in Japanese. I have watched Harry Potter twice in Japanese, once in English, and have read through my Japanese phrase books ad nauseum. Before I boarded the flight for Narita, I spoke to my Dad, and he told me how proud he was that someone from the family would be in Japan to help since a medical condition limited him. I confessed to him my fear that my language abilities had been oversold in an attempt to get me to Japan. My greatest nightmare was the linguistic equivalent of the one where you’re naked: A US General says something in English, turns to me, and awaits my translation, and I’ve got nothing. Dad assured me it would all come back to me eventually, I just needed some time. But I was less confident.
So, I spent the flight immersing myself as much as possible. Refreshing basic intros, questions, numbers, etc. But all that can’t keep me from screwing up my customs form when I arrive. I manage a perfunctory “Doumo arigatou” (thank you) in my exit from customs and proceed into Narita proper, where I wander like a sleep-deprived gaijin and try to figure out where the shuttle to Yokota Air Base is located. There is an information desk manned by several Japanese people who look pleasant enough, so after reviewing my phrase books several times, I approach the desk, ready to ask for the location of the shuttle in Japanese.
Instead, what comes out is: “English o hanashimasuka?” What a chicken. I’ve just asked if anyone speaks English.
“Yes,” responds one of the ladies. Tan as I am, I’m sure that wave of relief that just washed over me also left my face red.Turns out I’ve wandered past the shuttle point several times already, and it is conspicuously marked by the only other white people in Narita right now. When I get there, I swear I recognize one of the other servicemen standing there as an officer in my community. But, I can’t be sure as tired as I am, so I simply find a seat and continue to study my Japanese.
The shuttle ride is uneventful. The welcome packet sent to me before I deployed warned I should be prepared for a long shuttle ride on the order of several hours. But in less than an hour and a half, we arrive at Yokota. On the ride, all I can think about is how nothing I see suggests a 9.0 hit only a week ago. Or that right now, on the northeast coast, people are still in survival mode. Keeping up with my emotions at this point is a useless endeavor. I have been through a lot in the past week, I haven’t slept in two days, but I’m here. If I haven’t mentioned that I deployed without any real clue what I’d be doing when I arrived, well, now you know. I have on hand, exactly one name and one phone number to call, and I can’t do the math in my head right now to figure out whether it’s a good idea or not. The hangar is freezing, a sobering reminder of the plight of the survivors at this point. In-processing goes fairly quickly, and evidently I’m expected to show up at the US Forces-Japan HQ tomorrow at 0530 to start in-processing with them, and find my job.
I hitch a ride to my quarters, which are in an old apartment tower on the other side of the flight line, somewhere on the 11th floor. I arrive and find I’m housed with about ten enlisted troops from the Special Operations Group at Okinawa, who are spread throughout the apartment on sleeping bags and pads. I have no idea what the SOG is doing here at this point, but then again, I can’t even tell people what I’m doing here either. I pop a sleeping pill, briefly pause to consider the early show time I have tomorrow, then swallow anyway. If I miss it because I slept through, whatever. Right now, I just need to sleep. 10 minutes into a movie on my laptop, it hits me like a train wreck in slow motion. I turn off the computer, and fall into a deep sleep.
