Very interesting coin and I can see how they could have been confused with each other in a pinch. I wish I would have learned more Japanese when I was stationed there in the service. Especially to be able to read Kanji would ahve been real useful in many situations. Luckily around the bases everything was in kanji and english.
Where were you stationed when you were here? These days there is a lot of English everywhere. Frankly, I kind of get annoyed, because it makes the lazy part of my brain want to just read the English and ignore all Japanese, and I don't want that. heh but that's a small problem that only a language learner has. For everyone else, it's getting pretty convenient. My city also has Portuguese everywhere because of all the Brazilians here so many sighs have three languages.
I was in Okinawa.
I've never been down there so I can't compare how things are. There is a marine base fairly close to me, over in Shizuoka. I see the military helicopters flying back and forth everyday.
Looking at some maps, it looks like that prefecture is where Camp Fuji is. I have never been there, but have been to MCAS Iwakuni in the Yamaguchi Prefecture a couple of times.