U.S. Army Soldiers and Japan Ground Self-Defense Force members here worked together Nov. 19 to beautify a piece of history on the installation that dates to World War II.
The effort marked the first time both groups partnered to clean the large, hand-etched stone, known as the “Sobudai” monument, which sits near the Camp Zama Chapel.
The Soldiers, assigned to the 765th Transportation (Terminal) Battalion, and the JGSDF members, stationed on Camp Zama, also raked leaves and neatened the area around the monument.
The monument has been on the site where Camp Zama now sits for more than 80 years, going back to when it was formerly the home of the Japanese Imperial Military Academy. It is inscribed on the front with the word “Soubudai.” Then-Emperor Hirohito gave the campus the same name, which means “military training heights in Sagami,” when he attended the academy’s first graduation ceremony held there in 1937.
Command Sgt. Maj. David A. Rio, the U.S. Army Garrison Japan garrison senior enlisted leader, said the Soldiers here regularly work with the JGSDF to clean the installation and its neighboring areas outside the gate. Their first effort cleaning the monument was notable because of its importance to the installation, Rio said. Before the group began, the command sergeant major explained to the Soldiers the monument’s history and its significance.
“It’s important for them to know [about the monument],” Rio said. “It’s a representation of the alliance between our two nations.”
JGSDF Capt. Michiko Mukaiyama, assigned to the 441st Finance Unit, said that joining the cleanup effort gave her some unique insight about the history of the monument. When it was first erected, she said, the United States and Japan were on different sides of the war. But today, she said, the two nations have come together and are now allies.
“This monument watched time go through,” Mukaiyama said. “It tells us something, and we all need to share that.”
