Another page in the comfort women tragedy was publicized today. According to a press report based on documents in the National Archives, US GIs were frequent users of comfort stations while occupying Japan immediately following WWII, until MacArthur outlawed the practice in 1946.
How do you think this will affect the Korean perception of the US military? Does it matter that these were based in Japan? What happens if documents are eventually found which indicate this occurred on Korean soil?
Some quotes...
"The U.S. occupation leadership provided the Japanese government with penicillin for comfort women servicing occupation troops, established prophylactic stations near the RAA brothels and, initially, condoned the troops' use of them, according to documents discovered by Tanaka."
"Amid complaints from military chaplains and concerns that disclosure of the brothels would embarrass the occupation forces back in the United States, on March 25, 1946, MacArthur placed all brothels, comfort stations and other places of prostitution off limits. The RAA soon collapsed.
MacArthur's primary concern was not only a moral one.
By that time, Tanaka says, more than a quarter of all American GIs in the occupation forces had a sexually transmitted disease."
/sigh
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