The army is designed to break you. It's designed to test the limits of your physical and mental ability in order to prepare you for a time where you will be tested to your utmost, in combat.

This was the general idea of the speech I got from my new base commander, captain Hamamoto. I'd gotten this speech before of course. It was the kind of thing that superior officers liked to do when you were assigned to them to show you that, "Yes, you're still in the army, and you'd better follow my orders if you want to get through this."

Hamamoto continued,

"Someday, when the Diet and Congress get their act together we're going to be heading to the Special Region." he cleared his throat, "And when that happens, I expect each and every one of you to be the best damn soldiers you can be. I expect you to serve your country faithfully."

"Yes sir!" we saluted him.

Of course this speech was only to the American part of the task force. The commander, I assume would repeat his speech to the Japanese contingent in their native language.

Over the next weeks, I made an effort to relearn some Japanese, which I'd studied previously during my weeb period in my teens. I'd forgotten the exact reason I learned it. Even back then, translated anime wasn't that hard to find. I guess I just liked the language. I didn't even try to learn kanji. The strange symbols plastered around the base would forever remain a mystery to me.

The base itself was what you would expect from a military base, namely it made mostly of concrete and was designed with practicality in mind. The base I was on was a fairly large complex of barracks, recreation, and training areas. Often, at the end of my day, I would go and sit down on one of the couches in the recreation area to watch the news. I was not alone in doing this.

My fellow Americans were the kinds of people that you would expect to be assigned to a force like this. Many of them had seen combat before, or had special skills and training. One of them, Walker, was a language expert. These kinds of things are what made my inclusion in the force all the more peculiar. Sure, I had some talent for learning languages, but I didn't actually know many, and hadn't tried to learn any in awhile. After one particularly grueling day of training I asked Walker why he thought I was here.

"Well, I guess your previous commander could've recommended you?" he said.

"That doesn't make any sense." I said.

"Really? I guess they could've wanted you gone."

"I wasn't that bad of a soldier, some on!"

"Well we're all going to the Special Region now, so it doesn't really matter why you were chosen."

"I guess…"

Being pragmatic has its merits, but they're diminished when you know that you'll be put in danger.

Although the information I'd received on the invaders had shown the bulk of their soldiers to be unthreatening, I was still concerned about the dragons. If we were caught on the other side without the proper weapons or support they could be dangerous. In fact, magic as a whole was very concerning to me. I had no idea of how far it went. If the invaders had something so fantastical as dragons, who knows what else they had?

My routine of training and news watching continued, and I eventually met all of the members of my unit. Again, the Americans were the types of people you would you expect for this unit. The people the JSDF sent were… Different. There was a very short woman named Shino, newly famous on the base for her martial arts skills. Perhaps I should say infamous, she did have a temper after all. There was also a perverted sergeant, one Takeo Kurata, whose weird cat girl fetish seemed to come up way too much in normal conversation.

Even their commanding officer, first lieutenant Itami was way more laid-back than one would expect for someone of his rank. He too, like Kurata, was an otaku. I learned about this when I mentioned the doujinshi festival that was canceled when the attack happened. I'd heard of it before.

"Really! I didn't think you knew." he said.

"Well, I know." I said.

"I was going there when we were attacked." he said.

"How many of these do you go to?"

"I'll be going to the winter event."

Itami was definitely an interesting person. Although he sometimes had trouble understanding my attempts at speaking Japanese.

Finally some non-OC characters! The conversation between Itami and Ian was in Japanese, that's why I simplified the language, italicized the words, and added a small misunderstanding. Just so you know, I'm not going to use honorifics unless absolutely necessary. The next chapter is coming at some point.