Regarding the Nov. 22 article "Japanese workers at U.S. bases strike": As a former U.S. Air Force member assigned to Yokota Air Force Base, I found the housing and base operations restaurant staff very helpful in making the transition from the United States to Japan. I believe the special allowances that Japanese nationals received for English studies are what enabled them to communicate so well with military personnel.
I also had responsibility for hiring and managing bilingual marketing personnel in Japan. We were a U.S.-based software company and paid a much higher salary for English-speaking technical people who could interface with U.S. corporate headquarters. It is my opinion that cuts in operational costs for language studies -- if they are among the benefit cuts proposed by the Japanese government -- would be a great detriment to effective operations on a military base.
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