During my Navy career, for three years beginning in April of 1993, I was stationed at Misawa Airbase at the northern end of Honshu, the largest of the islands which make up Japan. Mary and Annemarie flew out to join me a couple of months after I was assigned. Before the Japanese tour was over, we had had occasion to visit the islands of Okinawa and Guam, though Guam only as a place we passed through. And I did eventually take a stab at cooking a traditional Japanese dish, the stir-fried noodles called yakisoba.