This is the short version of the chain of events in my life leading to me meeting my wife Yuko. I have traveled and lived in many parts of the world, my father was in the Air Force from 1964-1984 so I got to move around quite a bit. I was born in 1968 in Charleston, South Carolina, that's were my father was stationed at the time. The list continues as you can see on my info page, but to make a long story short I also joined the Air Force in 1986, and my first assignment out of technical school was Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. My tour was supposed to only be two years but I kept extending until they wouldn't let me extend any more at five years.

Since I couldn't stay on Okinawa I decided to try another Japan assignment and was lucky to get one of the best kept secrets in the Air Force, in August of 1992 I was assigned to a remote communications relay facility near Fukuoka in Kyushu that only had five Air Force personnel assigned. We lived in the city of Kasuga and drove an hour to work to the top of a mountain called Seburiyama. I loved this assignment because for the first time in my life I had some privacy. As an E-4 Buck Sergeant, I was living in my own two bedroom apartment, cooking my own food, had a wonderful schedule, and the nearest base was over two hours away by expressway. We didn't have to deal with Commanders Call, lack of privacy, bad chow hall food, bad GI behavior common to most base areas, and since the last U.S. base in Fukuoka closed in 1978, and there are not too many foreigners in Fukuoka, most locals were incredibly friendly to us.

Of course my number one reason for loving where destiny had brought me, was that I met my wife to be in Fukuoka in 1993. I met Yuko when I went downtown with my buddy Keith that was visiting from Kadena. We were checking out the local nightclubs and by chance came across a group of girls in one that waved us over to dance with them, well, I locked on to Yuko right away and danced and got to know her and her friends. We met a few times here and there but remained only friends for a year because I was still attached to a girl from Okinawa that let her parents run her life. After that was behind me I started to meet Yuko more and more in the beginning of 1994, we officially decided to date around the middle of the year and completely fell in love with each other. Yuko's parents were totally unaware that their daughter had involved herself with an American, and by November we were getting quite nervous as to how her parents would react. Yuko decided to go ahead and tell them and they wanted to see me as soon as possible. We met at a Shabu Shabu restaurant on December 3rd, 1994 and her parents were as nervous as we were, but her parents seemed to be happy with me, and Yuko was almost shocked at how well her parents took to me. Later that evening, I felt so happy and confident that I decided to pop the question in the most unromantic place possible, my kitchen, but nonetheless Yuko said yes immediately.

We got married the summer of 1995 in Rowlett, Texas. Yuko's immediate family and a few Aunts, Uncles, and a best friend flew over for the event. For most of them it was their first time to come to America, and for a few their first time to leave Japan. Although we were now officially married, I wanted to give our marriage even more cultural impact so we had a Japanese ceremony the same month in Fukuoka. I felt this would make Yuko's family even happier, and Yuko's late Grandma Aoki got to attend as well.

We lived in Fukuoka for one more year and my time in Japan was up, with a total of nine years three months and now a Staff Sergeant, I was no longer allowed to extend in Japan and had to return Stateside August 1996. We had a brief one year assignment at Onizuka Air Station in Sunnyvale, California, and our son Shannon Hiroki was born in Mountain View on 10 May 1997. I left Active duty the end of September and went to work in the Dallas area at Electronic Data Systems. I did however decide to remain part time in the Air Force by joining the Air National Guard, and will retire in 2009, although I won't get any retirement money until I'm sixty.

Now that we've been back in the States for quite some time, there are times I feel like a stranger in my own land. I became so used to Japanese culture and food that I feel a little lost without it. Yuko does make Japanese food, but it's hard to find good ingredients, such as good fresh fish. Another thing that can make it difficult is that Americans have little understanding of Japan outside of Pokemon, Anime, Maki rolls as Sushi, and Hollywood's fake, overly glamorized, or stereotypical images of it. The majority of Americans can't tell the difference between Asian foods, let alone the cultural aspects and language. An example of how clueless Americans can be about Japanese culture was when we flew our sons Koinobori (three Carp wind socks) for boys day, some of our neighbors thought it was something for Cinco De Mayo, even though it looks Asian, and they knew my wife was Japanese and not Mexican.

Yuko has been very strong and has adapted well to American life, although she was really homesick at first, she soon realized that everything was going to be just fine. She was hit with a double whammy when we returned from Japan, she was not only going through homesickness and culture shock, but we soon found out that she was pregnant and morning sickness kicked in, all in time for a cross country road trip from Texas to California. We have returned to Japan every other year since 1996, with Yuko and the kids staying two months, and me typically joining them on the final month.