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For the law to be effective, a fundamental shift in the moral culture of the Navy would be necessary. That may be possible, though the long-standing eye-winks of high-ranking officers, the open encouragement of senior enlisted men, and the silence of chaplains have over the years created a sense that, by right, young men in uniform from Nebraska, Maine, and California should have easy access to the bodies of girls and young women from Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Somewhere I have a file of notes I have received from editors at conservative political magazines, from military officers, and from spokesmen at family values organizations. The notes make for depressing reading and usually revolve around a few themes: American troops did not invent prostitution and this kind of thing exists elsewhere in the world. Boys will be boys. Six months at sea is a long time. Japanese men are worse. Criticizing the military is un-American. We don't really care.

So radical feminists (who do care about the prostitutes) and abortion advocates (who know that children fathered by GIs and born to bar girls are likely to face grueling discrimination) seize the vacant high ground. This, along with the general silence of influential people who purport to care about families and the nation's moral fiber, makes it all the easier for the mainstream to ignore or to minimize the experiences of the bar and brothel girls. And the medics still pass out condoms while the generals and admirals speak in euphemisms.

But many people in Asia, who would like America's Christians to have a little decency, are perplexed by talk about the U.S. as a "city on a hill." In Iraq we promote democracy. In ports-of-call on the way home from Iraq we toss our coins into a system that locks girls in the clutches of pimps in Pattaya Beach, Bangkok and Phuket. Anti-American feeling grows in Korea and Japan, meanwhile, and we wonder why.

America has high principles and ideals. Inevitably, its pursuit of these ideals is imperfect. But some errors are more obvious than others.

I hope it bothers you that for the past several decades American servicemen in East Asia have horrendously exploited powerless women and girls with the consent of their superiors.

Preston Jones , who served in the U.S. Navy from 1986 to 1990, teaches at John Brown University.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

An article Jones earlier wrote on the history of the U.S. military's involvement with the East Asian sex trade is available on at the John Brown website.

He has also written on the subject for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Jones is on the advisory committee for ECPAT-USA, an organization devoted to fighting childhood prostitution.

He is also a contributing editor for Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture, for which he has written many articles.

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September (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48