For university student Yui Iwamuro, the U.S. Camp Zama near Tokyo is the closest she has gotten to anything military. She's one of many young students and adults who consider war, or the prospect of Japan going to war, as something distant, improbable and unrealistic in the 21st century.
But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's move toward expanding the role of Japan's armed forces has caused her to think again about Japan's postwar history and pacifist Constitution, which has defined its security posture with a heavy U.S. military presence.
"I've no idea what it means to exercise the right to collective self-defense, but my feeling is something is changing so I need to know what it is that's changing," she said before the Cabinet approved a constitutional reinterpretation on July 1, in what is widely seen as a major policy change.