By late December 1970, he had recovered enough to be transferred to Camp Hauge on Okinawa, where every Marine posted in the Western Pacific (including Vietnam) had to go for processing. When he arrived, Zinni expected a short stay, swiftly followed by return to duty to his unit in Vietnam. But new regulations, reflecting the growing reduction in U.S. forces, ended that hope: Since he’d been wounded and evacuated for more than thirty days, he was not allowed to return to combat. Neither could he go back to the States, since he had convinced the doctors, despite their strong concerns, to release him to full duty. Nor, finally, could he be assigned to an infantry unit based in Okinawa, such as the 3rd Marine Division, recently returned from Vietnam, since they were potentially redeployable to Vietnam, and Zinni could not be deployed there, by virtue of the rule previously stated. He had learned firsthand about catch-22s.

Zinni spent the remaining eight months of his yearlong Vietnam tour in the 3rd Force Service Regiment (3rd FSR), a logistics unit based at Camp Foster, Okinawa.

He expected to be bored. He was wrong.

Camp Foster was not boring. In fact, if his wish had been for combat, then his wish was granted. Camp Foster proved to be not all that different from a “real” combat zone . . . in many ways tougher than Vietnam.

After a few days of administrative processing, he set out to report in to 3rd FSR. His total possessions included a Red Cross-donated shaving kit and civilian clothes purchased out of his meager pay advance from the tiny post exchange at Camp Hauge.

Late one night, he walked out of the main gate and hailed an Okinawan taxicab to drive him to Camp Foster to report in. As the little car headed up the island road, his mood could not have been darker, thinking about his Marines in Vietnam and his family back in the States. He had managed to miss going back to either of them.

OKINAWA— barely sixty-six miles long and perhaps nineteen miles at its widest—runs roughly north to south. In the north, the country is rugged, much of it jungle. The more populated areas are in the south. Its people are of mixed race—partly Chinese, partly South Pacific islander, and partly Japanese—with a complicated history. Before World War Two, the island had been occupied by Japan, but before that it had had an even longer history of independence. Okinawans have never considered themselves Japanese, and the Japanese in turn have always treated them like a poor sister. Most wanted a return to independence.