From the Archives

With life slowly creeping back to normal at Misawa a month after a massive and devastating earthquake rocked the region, I decided to get the kids out of the house for a few hours.

It was the kids’ stuff — crushed toys, drawings and mud-caked clothing — that was the hardest for volunteers to pull from the debris in what was once a waterfront neighborhood in this tiny fishing village.

U.S. family members who left Japan under the military’s “voluntary departure” program stand to pocket a considerable amount of money, depending on whether they flew home to stay with family in North Dakota or chose to lie on the beaches of Waikiki.

Students now returning to Japan after evacuating to the United States should bring as much proof as possible of school work done in recent weeks, Department of Defense Dependent Schools Pacific officials said Wednesday.

With life slowly creeping back to normal at Misawa, attention has now turned to Operation Tomodachi, the U.S. military’s humanitarian relief efforts to assist communities devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunamis that pounded northeastern Japan.

Security forces personnel have received dozens of calls in the last 10 days reporting a 3-foot, 65-pound intruder on the base.