I'm John Batser with my colleague Colonel Grant Nusheum, United States Marine Corps, retired.

He's written seven years after the disaster of Fukushima nuclear reactor.

He wrote a piece in 2018, and we're reviewing what he wrote down at the time.

The memories change.

But there are lessons learned from the way the Japanese self-defense force and the Americans on

hand work together or didn't and what they learned from each other. Grant, you mentioned

the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Self-Defense Force Navy. The U.S. Navy understands amphibious, and that became vital for evacuation.

The Japanese do not understand amphibious at that time.

Has it changed since then?

Because you've got to get people out.

It's gotten a lot better.

And that's one of the unreported subtexts of this whole business is that although the Japanese

Navy got up to Tohoku that affected very quickly, because they didn't have an amphibious

capability or really the ability to work with the other services, they were not able to get

in.

And I think probably several thousand people died in the first 24, 48 hours who could have been saved.

And there was just a glaring absence of amphibious capability.

It was taboo in Japan because it was considered warlike.

And that is something that shouldn't have happened.

On the Japanese side, people recognize this. And some

of us decided that once this was all done, Japan would get an amphibious force. And they, after

the disaster thing stabilized, we went about it. And in about a year and a half, the Japanese

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