Out of Germany, Japan, and Alaska, at which location would you want to be stationed?

All three are great duty locations. I loved Alaska for the sheer outdoors, awesome drive up and back on the Alaskan Highway. If you like to hunt and fish, ski, camp, hike!!!

Germany is great central location to travel the countries on the continent. Travel is very easy. Lots to enjoy in Germany and elsewhere. Lots of fun times all throughout Europe, miss it.

Japan was probably my most favorite duty assignment, Yokota AB. Very friendly people, excellent location to travel and see Japan as well as take hops elsewhere.

You have 3 awesome locations to consider, and none are a poor choice. Enjoy your next assignment.

Japan

I was in Germany; you could spend a lifetime in that country alone and still not see everything. Wanted Alaska but never made it there.

I've always wanted to visit Japan, but I wanted Germany to be my first duty station, and luckily it was my first duty station and my third. I highly recommend it!

Also, I should point out that you can choose to request two spots at once and that you almost certainly will not get Japan. There is one ADA battalion, one SF battalion and one division level headquarters unit. That leaves about a handful of 25B2 spots, and each one of those who are filling them are there for three years. But Germany has a lot of units where a 25B2 can go.

Germany. I spent 7 years there and had a great time on an off duty. Korea I served twice, one as a 1SG and as a SGM. Neither one was that great!

Do you know where the assignments are in those locations? Stuttgart or Weisbaden is very different from Grafenwoehr. Misawa is very different from Zama, which is very different from Okinawa. And JBER is very different from Ft. Wainwright.

Personally, my choice would be Japan just because the Army presence in Japan is so small that the opportunities don't come up much. If you pass up now, you will likely not get the opportunity again in your career, where as Germany and Alaska have many more billets so the opportunity to go again in the future is probably higher.

As an IT guy, my guess is you have the possibility of going to any base at those locations. For Japan the main base is Camp Zama which is about 40km southwest of Tokyo, so you are about a 1hr train ride from Tokyo and very much in the greater metro area. If you like city living this is a great location. If you like the mountains/nature you are 1-2 hour train ride/drive from the mountains and close to a bunch of great hikes and Mt. Fuji. The main Army location is here so my guess is that is where you would be, but there is also some Army personnel located on Okinawa, which is basically a tropical island. It never really gets cold there... maybe high 50s/low 60s for a couple months during the winter, but the rest of the year will be 80s-90s and you are close to the beach and much more outdoors. There are also a few very remote ADA locations scattered around that I suppose you could end up at as well. Japan is expensive, but it's still a great assignment. Also know that you can't ship your car to Japan, so you will most likely need to buy a "beater" for your tour here. Don't worry, they're actually very reasonably priced, $1-2k for a good car that will last you 3 years and then you sell it when you leave and will probably make most of your money back.

Germany there are so many bases so I'm not even going to hazard a guess where you might end up, but regardless, trains are ubiquitous and can get you everywhere. It's also much more of a driver friendly country than Japan... Japan you will be stuck in traffic and it's not really worth driving anywhere if you live in the Zama area. The autobahns are great and you can drive all over central Europe and it's nice because you get a gas card so you can buy up to 300 liters of fuel per month on the Germany economy at on-post prices (a HUGE savings). Between the trains, autobahns, and airports it's easy to travel all over Europe... this is without a doubt the best part of being in Germany. You also get a 4-day weekend every month, even on the months without a holiday so great travel opportunities to see the countries and experience different cultures.

I've never been to Alaska, so can't personally help you there, but JBER you're going to have city stuff with Anchorage, but also be close to still do any outdoor activities you want. Fairbanks is straight-up remote, and if you prefer a city setting, it probably won't be great for you. Fairbanks is also prone to drastic daylight hour swings depending on the season that you don't get as much of in Anchorage.

For either Japan or Germany you will almost certainly be living on post.

3 years in Germany
4 years in Alaska
2 weeks in Japan - tdy.

Loved them all.

Much depends on what you want to do. Travel; Germany or Japan. Great outdoors action: Alaska

Hands down GERMANY very good assignment

It all depends on what your hobbies/interests are. If you're an outdoorsman, Alaska is the way to go. If you love travelling and food, Germany is the way to go because Europe is there for the taking. If culture and food is your thing, then Japan.