The town with the military base into which the Reacher family have moved is clearly in North America, but the second language on the new-looking sign on the chain-link gate is in Japanese, beginning with the Japanese word for "beach"--actually in katakana instead of kanji.
In the story, Joe was approximately two years older than Reacher. The actor who plays young Joe, Gavin White, is 2two inches " taller but four months younger than the actor who plays young Reacher, Maxwell Jenkins But, the actor who plays adult Joe, Christopher Russell is about two years older and about one inch shorter than the actor who plays Reacher, Alan Ritchson].