Stateside Marines who looked at the new enlisted barracks in Japan featuring private rooms should not get their hopes up about the possibility of living without a roommate.
The only enlisted barracks with individual rooms for corporals and below will be built in Okinawa and mainland Japan, a Marine Corps official told Task & Purpose.
The Marine Corps currently has no plans to open similar barracks at installations in the United States, the official said.
Top Stories This Week
“The shared-room model promotes camaraderie and small-unit leadership, which are foundational to the Marine Corps ethos,” the Marine Corps official said. “This approach also ensures the efficient and optimal use of available installation space and resources, maximizing our ability to provide quality housing for all personnel.”
Enlisted Marines begin sharing living spaces the moment they start boot camp, during which they are housed in open squad bays. Afterward, junior enlisted Marines move into barracks — officially known as unaccompanied housing — unless they are authorized to live off base. For enlisted Marines, barracks life often involves living with roommates, which can be trying at times.
The Marine Corps requires that barracks lodge two Marines from the rank of private to corporal — the E1 to E4 paygrades — per room, the Corps official told Task & Purpose.
However, the Japanese government is paying to build barracks that are an exception to that requirement by featuring private rooms for enlisted Marines at bases on Okinawa, collectively known as “Camp Butler,” as well as Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, the official said. Marines living there will have their own bedrooms and bathrooms and share a living room and kitchen with one other Marine.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new barracks at Camp Hansen, Okinawa, was held on June 5. Stars and Stripes first reported that the facilities offer each enlisted Marine a 155-square-foot bedroom.
Roughly 1,100 Marines in total are expected to live in the three new barracks, which were built between March 2022 and May 2026 as part of an effort to consolidate U.S. forces on Okinawa per an agreement between the United States and Japan, a Marine Corps news release says.
Formally known as the US-Japan Defense Policy Review Initiative, the agreement also calls for the United States to move about 9,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, Hawaii, and other locations in the Pacific, while about 10,000 Marines would remain in Okinawa.
The Camp Hansen facilities featuring private rooms have been transferred from the Japanese government to the Marine Corps, and the first residents are expected to begin moving into them starting in August following final administrative processing and safety and fire readiness checks. Citing security concerns, the official declined to say what units will be lodged in the barracks with single rooms.
“This state-of-the-art facility will be replacing six other facilities on Camp Hansen,” Maj. Gen. Brian N. Wolford, who led Marine Corps Installations Pacific at the time, said in the Marine Corps news release. “It is the first domino that is starting the rest of the construction on Camp Hansen.”
