Michael Cash wrote:
> On Wed, 03 May 2006 21:22:22 -0400, Kevin Wayne Williams
> <kww.nihongo@verizon.nut> brought down from the Mount tablets
> inscribed:
>
> >US military personnel
> >didn't require passports at all.
>
> That was still the case when I was in Uncle Sam's Navy, and I suspect
> that it is still the same today. I visited several countries with no
> passport.

Is still the case. Strangely enough the situation extends to
non-American military who happen to enter the country via a USN vessel
or US base. I managed to get my (Austrian army) brother on the booze in
Tokyo, he wasn't planning to visit, and has no stamp in his passport
from the visit. He was on a seppo ship on some sort of exercise that
involved a change of plan.

Yamasa loves SOFA too. At least 5 of the students in the past year to
study in Okazaki would otherwise have officially not been in Japan.