[Military Environmental Forum] GUAM: "The Environmental Cost of Preparing For War With China"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Fortress Guam: The Environmental Cost of Preparing For War With China
As the Pentagon expands firing ranges, missile defenses, and other infrastructure across Guam, residents say the island is being asked to bear the environmental consequences of America’s strategy against China.

BY SONNER KEHRT AND  HUGO HODGE
War Horse
SEPTEMBER 29, 2026

Life felt peaceful when Robert Underwood was a child on Guam.

The small island in the western Pacific had survived three brutal years under Japanese occupation during World War II. But in the early 1950s, village life had a rhythm to it. Half the island’s population was still Indigenous CHamoru people, who trace their roots on the island back thousands of years. The U.S. military, which had been growing its presence on the island since American forces retook it from Japan in 1944, was there, too. But military folks had separate lives.

“They lived behind the fence. They shopped behind the fence,” Underwood said. “I grew up at a time when CHamoru was the language of the neighborhood.”

By the time Underwood—who would later serve as Guam’s delegate to Congress and as president of the University of Guam—graduated high school in 1965, things were changing. During his junior year at Tumon Junior-Senior High School—named for the district where it was located—the school became John F. Kennedy High School after the president’s assassination. The change reflected Guam’s growing connection to events unfolding thousands of miles away on the U.S. mainland.

…

For the entire article, see
https://thewarhorse.org/guam-military-buildup-environment/


—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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