Building snow statues, building communities

Abstract

This chapter examines the relationship between the early post-war military and specific local communities from 1950 to the early 1970s. The reconstituted military did not, of course, commence relief operations to garner public acclaim, nor was it proper for the organization to boast about its work for publicity purposes. The Self-Defense Force (SDF) involvement in disaster relief, construction work, rural aid, and event support certainly, but it also opened it up to criticism. Given such pressures, perhaps it is not surprising that when Nayoro voters elected Sakuraba, the municipal employee union leader, as the city's first socialist mayor in 1986, they did so only after he broke with the party's official stance and recognized the SDF. Rural areas benefited from SDF outreach in other ways as well. The SDF regularly dispatched doctors to remote villages with limited access to health care to provide check-ups. The year 2005 marked the final time that the Makomanai base hosted the Sapporo Snow Festival.