Saipan

Saipan is our first destination on the trip. I have been here once before, in 1999, when I was a reconnaissance team leader on the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) out of Okinawa, Japan. We were here for a couple of days, if I remember correctly, on a reconnaissance and surveillance training operation. We flew to the island aboard military aircraft and went directly to our operations site under cover of darkness. The remainder of our time here was spent conducting the training mission, so there wasn't much time to see anything here except for the immediate environs of the training mission and the interior of blacked out vehicles that we got around in.



This time we are staying at a resort hotel along the main thoroughfare through the main town, Garapan. Driving into town last night, it struck me how similar Garapan's business and tourism district looked like the same area in Tumon Bay, Guam's main tourism strip. Literally, it is almost an exact replica. I'm pretty sure the set-up in Guam was there first, as that Guam is the more commercially developed of the two islands and has, I'm sure, a much larger population.



It's interesting to read about the history of places like Saipan with regard to World War II. Not to mention Guam and Tinian. Nearby Tinian was actually where the B-29s that carried nuclear payloads on Japan in 1945 originated from. I haven't had the chance to make it over there to see Tinian for myself, but maybe someday I will have a chance.



GJS