Make Believe Bonus: Camp Foster Festival

CeeLo Green...Is The War Machine

It was supposed to be about pure relaxation. Thanks to a bunch of JAL miles on the verge of expiring, I booked a flight to Okinawa in early July. I had never been to the archipelago, so this four-day vacation would be a chance to live out fantasies of white-sand beaches and brilliant blue waters. I achieved this for the first two days at a resort tucked away on the northwest coast of the main island. Sure, I had some emails and small work assignments to wrap up, but overall I experienced something rare…a semi-sense of getting away.

This looked like it would continue after check out, where family and I hopped in a taxi bound for the more urban Chatan about 30 minutes south. Yet as the car navigated the island back roads, I kept seeing flyers affixed to fences and signboards. Vaguely Disney-style font surrounded by firework explosions. “Camp Foster Festival…what is that?” Knowing my geopolitics, I put together that one of the U.S. military bases near Chatan would be hosting a Fourth Of July event.

Truly grabbing my attention, though, was a face front and center that looked vaguely familiar, but not immediately recognizable. To Google I went, finding an official page for the event. And my jaw dropped…somehow, as part of a Marine jamboree, disgraced American artist CeeLo Green would be headlining that very evening.

Wilder still…Camp Foster Festival was open to anyone with American or Japanese citizenship to attend. I knew at this moment…I needed to risk my family’s entire vacation to experience American military entertainment at its finest.

Somehow, they agreed to go…and after a quick nap at the hotel, we were off to the entrance, technically entering American territory for one of the dumbest nights of my life.