The time the USS Los Angeles pulled in to Sasebo while on West-PAC I, and my Navy nerd buddies found a toy store. It had all manner of great Japanese toys: giant monsters, weird noise makers, classic Power Rangers, Sugar pills in various cheap plastic holders, you name it. I, being the toy nerd amongst our party, was like a kid in a candy store. I wandered around oohing and ahhing at the vast array of weird and wonderful toys, while the other guys humored me. I walked to the escalator in the back of the shop and rode it up into what looked like an armory. Shelves and cases were filled with guns. There were pistols, submachine guns, rifles, shotguns, and other apparent dealers of death. Each was an airsoft replica of a real firearm. They used either spring power, gas canisters or battery power to shoot 6mm plastic BBs. It was AWESOME.
I ran down the escalator, grabbed James, Justin, and Mike, and led them upstairs. We each found guns that fit our liking. James got a spring powered CZ-75 (used in one of his favorite anime 'Gunsmith Cats'). Justin got a silver gas powered M1911 that looked like the topside watch's sidearm, except silver. Mike got a Desert Eagle with full action, gas powered blow-back. I, however, fell in love with a monster. The KSC brand Beretta M93-R "Auto-9" ROBOCop Pistol. Fully automatic or three round burst gass powered with 'Hop-up' backspin system. It was AWESOME. The detail was so good that, not only did it have the Beretta makers marks on it but, it had the OCP 001 corporate logo on the iron sight. A true thing of beauty.
We each took our guns out to a local park and set up a paper target. We, being young navy nerds, didn't think of what the local Japanese people would think of a group of Americans with guns, even if they were toy guns, in their park. We start plinking away, reveling in the awesomeness of the realistic toy weapons. After the third reload, there was suddenly a voince screaming "THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS , GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES AND PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!" At that moment, we looked around to see that there were no less than 4 M-16s trained on us and a group of angry looking shore patrol giving us the steely gaze. I need not tell you there were bricks shit at that moment.
I held out my gun with 2 fingers on the butt and yelled "They are toys!" I fell to my knees and, as gently as possible, tossed my gun away from myself. I dared not look around, but didn't hear any other conversation from the rest of the group. I heard the shore patrol officer in charge muttering something to someone. "SLOWLY REMOVE YOUR LEFT HAND FORM YOUR HEAD AND REACH INTO YOUR RIGHT BACK POCKET!" I tried to obey first, without thinking, and reached my left hand slowly behind me. I stammered, "Um, I can't reach it with my left hand." I heard a poorly stifled chuckle from the officer. It seems that, because we were not armed terrorists, we were being used as a training exercise. The younger shore patrolman then yelled, "PLACE YOU LEFT HAND BACK ON YOUR HEAD AND USE YOUR RIGHT HAND YO PULL OUT YOUR WALLET." After successfully extracting our wallets and checking our IDs, the shore patrol cuffed us and herded us into the back of their van.
Once the van was closed, we were uncuffed and were told that due to the Status of Forces Agreement, US Military are not allowed to own weapons, firearms, facsimile firearms, or fireworks in Japan. We had not been told this before we pulled into Sasebo, or Yokusuka before that. They took us back to the boat and turned us over to the Officer of the Day. Worst of all, they kept the guns. We didn't get into trouble, but I had to wright a note in the Plan of the Day to let everyone know not to get in the same trouble we had.
TO BE CONTINUED...
