Yoshi Kagami was a young woman of 26 when some 140,000 fellow civilians, many forced to commit suicide by fanatical Japanese soldiers, died in the Battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.
The octogenarian resident of Japan's southernmost island says she isn't sorry the US won the war.
But almost six decades later, she thinks it's time for the Marines to leave.
"I don't think we need them here, we have our own Japanese Self-Defense Forces," said Kagami, just days before the 58th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa on Monday.
"But I don't think they will leave," she said.
Once a proud, independent kingdom with a rich culture and its own language, Okinawa has been trapped in a strategic triangle with Japan and the US ever since Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in the port of Naha with his "Black Ships" 150 years ago.
Perry then sailed to Tokyo to demand Japan open diplomatic and commercial ties with Washington.
"Perry saw Okinawa as a geopolitical strategic point to cover all of East Asia and tried to use it as a lever and a wedge to move Japan into submission," columnist Yoichi Funabashi wrote in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper recently.
A century and a half after Perry, the top Marine in Okinawa says the island is still key to America's ability to respond to regional threats, including North Korea.
"The simple fact is, it's closer to more important things than any other place," Lieutenant-General Wallace "Chip" Gregson said in an interview.
Speculation that most of the 17,000 Marines based on Okinawa may be shifted elsewhere as part of a global realignment of US forces has raised residents' hopes that the the American military presence may finally shrink substantially.
Okinawa -- Japan's poorest prefecture and a two-and-a-half hour flight from Tokyo -- has long resented bearing what many see as an unfair burden for US-Japan security ties.
The anger is targeted as much at Tokyo for treating the prefecture like a neglected stepchild as at Washington.
With about 1 percent of Japan's land area and population, Okinawa is home to 75 percent of the area used for US bases in Japan and some 60 percent of the US military personnel.
Periodic crimes by US servicemen, including the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl, have sparked outrage, and memories of past misdeeds run deep.
"Frankly, I want them to leave," said Tomiko Kohatsu, 41, grasping her small daughter's hand.
"I don't have any positive thoughts toward them," she said.
Some Okinawan residents, however, fear damage to the local economy if the US military shrinks its presence significantly.
Others say they feel safer knowing the Americans are helping to defend Japan.
"I don't like the incidents, so I wish the bases weren't here, but they are protecting us, so I feel safe," said Chika Arakaki, 18.
Back in Tokyo, talk of withdrawal prompts concerns about Washington's commitment to the US-Japan alliance, the bedrock of Japanese postwar diplomacy and security policy.
A withdrawal "might send an unfortunate message to North Korea and to China, and might create a loss of confidence among many Japanese people towards the United States," Kunihiko Saito, a former Japanese ambassador to the US, said.
US officials have denied media reports that most of the Marines could be moved to Australia or elsewhere in the region.
But Gregson and others acknowledge that changes may lie ahead as the US military seeks to improve its ability to cope with modern threats of terrorism and rogue states.
"The reason the Marines stayed in Okinawa long after reversion [when the US returned Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty in 1972] had to do with three great items -- location, location, location," US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told Japanese media in Tokyo earlier this month.
"But ... the Department of Defense is going to a more global approach in these matters, and who knows where that will lead us," Armitage said.
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