TOKYO – Fleeing to an evacuation shelter after a tsunami swept through her coastal hometown in Miyagi prefecture on March 11, 2011, a young Rina Gonoi saw first-hand the relief work led by Japan’s military Self-Defence Forces (SDF).
Inspired to be a force for good, the then 11-year-old fifth-grader saw the SDF as her dream job, and joined the army in April 2020.
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