Planting the Flags of our Fathers

U.S. troops used 'comfort women' after WWII

In post-war Japan, tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down.

Funny, I don’t remember Grandpa including this in his war stories.

Kaburagi wrote that occupation GIs paid upfront and were given tickets and condoms. The first RAA brothel, called Komachien -- The Babe Garden -- had 38 women, but due to high demand that was quickly increased to 100. Each woman serviced from 15 to 60 clients a day.

60 clients a day? Assuming a standard 8-hour workday with OSHA approved coffee breaks…that means servicing a serviceman every 8 minutes. Now who’s the real war hero? Most troops only got shot at a few times.

But in all seriousness, this is pretty horrible. Comfort Women were often coerced, some say enslaved into prostitution for the Japanese armed forces. And these documents show that US troops were complicit in maintaining the heinous status quo after the war. Again, Grandpa never mentioned this.