Far from home, unpaid Coast Guard members in Japan visit food pantry for essentials

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Servicemembers working without pay due to the government shutdown picked up donated groceries from a food pantry Thursday at the home of U.S. Forces Japan in western Tokyo.

Twenty-two Coast Guardsmen, including 15 at Yokota and seven in Singapore, aren’t being paid during the shutdown, which started more than a month ago. The impasse stems from House Democrats’ refusal to provide President Donald Trump with the billions he demands to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.

Other military branches have continued to receive paychecks, but the Coast Guard, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, not the Defense Department, has gone unfunded.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz on Wednesday publicly criticized the lack of pay.

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