There will be no port visits to Pattaya or Phuket.
Wanchai, Orchard Towers, Lucky Plaza, Geylang and pretty much any place fun in the Philippines-Will be off limits.
Massagee in Ropppongi or the Honch? Forget it. Oh, and if you say you know what a soapie is? Stand by for NCIS to pay you a visit.
Picking up cute Japanese girls at Gas Panic? Your new, socially correct, feminist overlords will allow none of that. And don’t even think-of taking your NANPA prize back to a love hotel.
A nice walk up the hill in Itaewon or Texas Street?-completely out of the question.
Your cruises will be almost ten months long.
With curfews and liberty restrictions.
Don’t even think of asking the Corpsman for Condoms.
Oh, and lest we forget, there will be a 2.1 Carrier Commitment in the Persian Gulf from now till hell freezes over.
You won’t be able to go to Australia because of fuel costs-and if you do you will be expected to work on com-rel projects.
And you will get breathalyzed crossing the quarterdeck.
But hey, enjoy the Pacific anyway.
I’m sorry I never will get to meet you! Thank God for German and Australian tourists-to pick up the slack left by your absence!
Skippy,
You are correct! No more fun for port visits unless you like going to build and paint orphanages in countries that should done by the country themselves. But, we are showing the world how caring we are.
This will all continue until the Navy gets rid of those commercials that state we are: "A Global Force for Good."
Skippy,
I may have posted this here before, but a good book to read is called: "Let The Good Times Roll: Prostitution and the US Military in Asia." It was written back in 1993 (the height of the Tailhook paranoia). It takes a look at the areas outside Subic (been there done that), Okinawa (same), and South Korea (same).
Though it is now dated, it does give a look at what used to be considered a good time in Asia. But now the times have changed. Reading a review at Amazon, one reader pretty much summed up my feelings this way:
"If we're going to complain about GI's messing around with Asian bargirls in the late 80's/ early 90's, then heck while we're at it let's complain about them using French bordellos during World War I. Also tiresome is the underlying tone of "Look at these poor women and what the big bad US military is doing to them". As if the US is responsible for seedy bartowns in Asian countries. If all the base bartowns disappeard overnight, sure a few GI's might be disappointed, but you wouldn't see the Command structure demanding that they return. It's as simple as this guys, if you REALLY don't want the American GI's to buy something- then don't sell it! Sure, I know the girls are poor, and working as bargirls may be the only way to make money for some of them. But the single US soldire can't do anything about the economic stratification between his country and another's. And if you open up a bar next to a base full of 18-25 yr old GI's, well, what do you expect is going to happen? "
My thoughts exactly. Why is it that we want the so called "rich" Chinese and Japanese tourists to come to places like Hawaii and spend, spend, spend, yet when we get servicemembers in other countries we can't spend but just build schools and paint orphanges.
What people don't get is that without the point and click sex aspect, a Westpac deployment is nothing more than a Med deployment, with better food, longer transit times and no Cathdrals.
On a similar topic, I saw a woman at the Pack and wrap in Yokosuka putting bags of rice and other food into a box to be mailed to the PI. Nothing wrong with that, but just think about it. It is better for her to mail food from Japan to the PI to support her family. Whose fault is that? I would say the government of the PI.
Same way to look at the expansion of the "R&R" business for Sailors on deployment. It's not the fault of a 23 yr old Sailor that some women will offer a fee for service, they are just doing it to make money because their countries government can't provide for them. We always speak of the "free market" so why not let our guys participate in the gloabal free market economy. Yet, we just pay them a lot of money to go and build schools for some other country, a job that should be done internally and not by visitors.