This is the same line many other anti US military people have been spouting as their new attack scheme. The truth is that wavers for criminal records are less than 1% of the Army/Marine recruits every year. That is just the recruits, not takeing into account the active force that already exists prior to the wavers. So this percentage is miniscule and not enough to blame any kind of increase in crimes commited by military members. If you look at the numbers, the crime rate has actually decreased in japan. Im not going to pull up a bunch of links with statistics because they have already been presented on this message board several times and im in no mood to repeat myself. If you truely want to find out the truth you will enlighten yourself by looking them up, however I doubt you will. It is unfortunate that many people believe what they hear from others without question. This is why we have so many generalizations about different races and cultures. If we continue generalizing the world will never come together and peace will never be possable. I to am guilty of generalizing. I have on occassion thought to myself when passing a Japanese person of all the horrible things that have been said about us US military members and I think to myself.. "I wonder what this person thinks as they are passing me". Do they think im forcing myself on their soil as an imperialist? Do they think im going to try to rob them? Do they think im going to sexually assault some women somewhere? Or do they just see me as a good person who, just like them, is trying to do a job and take care of my family? I would love to make several japanese friends because I am fascinated by their culture. However, the stigma that I feel is out there makes me embaressed to even try to say hello.