Navy details impact of Guam move

[unhappycamper]

Navy details impact of Guam move
By Teri Weaver , Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Monday, November 23, 2009

TOKYO — It’s 8,600 Marines, not 8,000, moving to Guam.

That doesn’t count the estimated 9,000 sailors and Marines expected to visit the island for an average of two months each year.

And when construction, moving and hiring really get cranking in 2014 under the U.S. military’s plan to expand its bases in Guam, an estimated 80,000 people will temporarily flood the island, almost doubling the current population, according to a Navy report released Friday detailing the possible effects of the buildup.

The massive report comes more than three years after the United States and Japan agreed to move the III Marine Expeditionary Force.

The troop movement, from Okinawa to Guam, is part of a strategy to decrease troops in Japan and bolster the U.S.-controlled island in the Pacific.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/m/article.asp?section=104&article=66252