About Our School

Welcome to Kinser ES!

Kinser Elementary opened to students on April 22, 1987, after moving from Makiminato Elementary School during the spring break. The Makiminato Housing Area was closed and the real estate turned over to the Japanese Government. Kinser Elementary (PSCD, Sure Start and K-6) is located on Camp Kinser, overlooking the beautiful, scenic East China Sea. Five additions to the original complex are in place as well as a softball field, soccer field, basketball court, and gymnasium/auditorium. Kinser Elementary is a community-conscious DoDDS school ready to serve the military community just as the military serves the school. Special thanks go to the U.S. Marine Corps for their outstanding support to this ever expanding neighborhood school.

School Schedule

Office Hours: 0700-1500
School Hours: 0830-1450, Tuesdays 0830-1350

We belong to the DoDEA Pacific South District which is part of the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA). DoDEA is a Department of Defense field activity operating under the direction, authority, and control of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

KSES Namesake

On Independence Day, 1946, at Greeneville, Tennessee, a grateful nation paid tribute to a gallant Marine, posthumously awarding the Medal of Honor to the late Marine Sergeant Elbert Luther Kinser, of Greeneville.

Sergeant Kinser won the nation's highest military decoration while acting as a Leader of a rifle platoon, serving with Company "I", Third Battalion, First Marine Division, in action on Okinawa.

Taken under sudden, close attack by hostile troops entrenched on the reverse slope while moving up a strategic ridge along which his platoon was holding newly won positions, Sergeant Kinser engaged the enemy in a fierce hand grenade battle.

Quick to act when a Japanese grenade landed in the immediate vicinity, Sergeant Kinser unhesitatingly threw himself on the deadly missile, absorbing the full charge of the shattering explosion in his own body and thereby protecting his men from serious injury and possible death. The action occurred on May 4, 1945.

General Clifton B. Cates, Commandant of the Marine Corps, then a major general, presented the medal to the parents of the Sergeant, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie P. Kinser, of Route 7, Greeneville, during ceremonies attended by a host of dignitaries including the governor of the State of Tennessee.

The native Tennessean, born in Greeneville, October 21, 1922, enlisted with the Marine Corps in December, 1942, and received his preliminary or "boot" training at Parris Island, South Carolina. Prior to enlisting, he had worked on his father's farm.

He sailed from the United States in March, 1943, and joined the Seventh Replacement Battalion in Pago Pago, Tutuila, American Samoa. Later, that battalion joined the First Marine Division in Melbourne, Australia, and Sergeant Kinser was assigned to "I" Company, First Marines.

Action with the First Marines followed at Cape Gloucester, New Britain, and later at Peleliu, Palau Islands. On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, Sergeant Kinser landed with his unit at Okinawa where he was subsequently killed in action, May 4.

In addition to the Medal of Honor, Sergeant Kinser was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart; Presidential Unit Citation awarded the First Marine Division, Reinforced for Service on Okinawa; Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal; and the World War II Victory Medal.

Sergeant Kinser was buried in the First Marine Division Cemetery on Okinawa and his remains were returned to the United States in early 1949 for burial in Greeneville, Tennessee.

September 1949 - USMC