Right before this trip happened, the Russians shot down a passenger jet killing all on board. This put a little political spin on this exercise at the start, but at the end it ended up being routine and uneventful. We were told our visit was the largest deployment of U.S. troops to Japan since World War 2.

James Dad was deployed as a part of a 900 man brigade controlled Battalion task force from 9th Infantry Division to participate in a bi-lateral exercise with the Japanese ground self defense forces & United States forces from 2-21 October, 1983.