January 5th, 2014.

It was fucking tough getting up in the morning, my jetlag's kicking in now. You'd think after about two or three years of straight deployment to places all around the world...the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean near the Holy Land, mainly, because of my major deployments...I would be used to this global travel phenomenon called jetlag. But I'm not.

Not yet.

And sometimes, I can still smell the sand, the sea salt, and the cannon barrel gunpowder when I wake up.

Or is that just what this base smells like? I guess it doesn't matter, nor would it come as a surprise.

I can't slack off on my own training regimen. All those drills, the physical torture they put us through at Hargrave and in boot camp, I got a sense of keeping myself healthy and fit drilled and pounded into me. You could think of all of us at school and at boot camp as a mass of misshapen tools going through the forge and the anvil, getting pounded out to be just right. It's a corny analogy, but it works.

Woke up at around 0600 hours. Spent an hour setting up a training course like the ones at Hargrave. Since I don't exactly have the same stuff here, I had to make do with what I got: After stretches and warm-up, I started with three laps around the base - I think it's about two miles total. It was nice running along the docks with the sea breeze rolling along. There were some empty fuel barrels that someone cleaned out sittin' in the warehouses, so I brought 'em out and did hundred-meter relays with them, grabbin' the barrels one at a time and running hundred meters with 'em and putting them all from one place to the other. Then I went out and swam a mile or so out in the sea. The waters aren't that deep where the base's located, so it's relatively safe for swimming. Not too sure about later on throughout the year, though. After that, I got out my military cadet's sword from my graduation that I've kept and practiced my swordsmanship with it.

I get that nowadays, swords are outta fashion. A gun's more efficient. Through the marvels of science, you can make a small piece of lead get propelled by a chemical reaction at speeds fast enough to punch holes into people's bodies with said piece of lead. And if you hit people in the right places, one piece of lead is all you'll need, and all you needed to do was pull a goddamn trigger. So much effort put into that, I'm sure.

But there's something elegant in a sword. Put a sword next to a gun, and tell me what you see. I see a reserved, unpretentious honesty to the sword. With a gun, you don't know how it'll need to be operated in order for it to work the way you want. Guns can be deceiving, and oftentimes complicated. But with swords, you don't need to overthink it. Just grab the sword by the handle, and you're armed. A simple weapon that's been with humans ever since we found out how to work with metals and such. Simple, straightforward, lethal, and elegant. No wonder "gentlemen" of sixteenth to eighteenth century genteel Europe wore swords.

Murakumo saw me practicing my swordsmanship, which surprised me when I realized she was watching me silently. I was like, fifteen or twenty minutes or so into my practice when I finally noticed her watching me. She asked me about my sword, where I got it, so I told her that it was given to me by my parents for my graduation ceremony at Hargrave. She asked me why I was practicing my swordsmanship, and I told her it was to keep myself fit and not forget how to use a sword.

She asked me if I ever killed someone with my sword before, and I told her that I did once, so she asked me about that.

I asked her why a subordinate like her was asking such personal questions like that to me, her superior, and she shut up real quick.

Just from that alone, Murakumo seems like she's not sarcastic and sour-faced all the time. It was nice talking with her about random stuff, and she didn't talk to me like I was some goddamn gaijin, which is Japanese for foreigner, I think. And at the very least she's willing to recognize me as her superior, which I'm relieved about. At least I can have some faith in her that she'll do as I order her to.

I told her I would tell her if she insisted, and Murakumo said she wanted to know. It's not like it's a glorious story or anything: one time at the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia, there was a terrorist who attempted to hold one of our higher-ranking admirals hostage when we went over to visit. The only weapon I had on me at the time was my sword, so I just struck him down after he shot me once in the shin. I showed Murakumo the scar in my right shin as proof.

She offered to have a spar with me, which surprised me. I didn't expect her to know how to use a sword, and besides, I'd imagine she'd know how to use a katana or a Japanese sword, so I don't know how well I'd do against that, so I declined. That, and my sword isn't meant for sparring. Like, seriously, it's a ceremonial sword for a reason. Speaking of katanas, if I really fucking wanted a sword that I'd use to reliably slice people's heads off, I'd go for a katana. I've used one before, and it was great. Maybe I'll pick up a katana while I'm here. Murakumo seemed a bit disappointed at my decline, but when I asked her if I should've accepted, she just shook it off and told me not to worry about it.

I finished up sword practice with Murakumo watching the rest of the time since she asked if she could just watch me, and I said okay. Felt a bit weird, practicing my swordsmanship with someone watching me, but it's whatever.

As soon as I stopped, Inazuma and Samidare came out with some fresh tea that they were brewing up. Apparently Samidare, Inazuma, and Murakumo are early birds, which I didn't expect. There were rules about how the ship girls needed to conduct themselves, like curfews and such, in the documentation that I got before coming here, but it's really hard for me to enforce them strictly to teenage girls who're supposed to be my subordinates, so it's not like I'm gonna go out and enforce a set time that everyone should wake up and go to sleep, to be honest. I asked about Sazanami and Fubuki, and from what I gather, they like to sleep in a bit later than the others.

Samidare and Inazuma seemed pretty surprised that I was even up this early. They didn't expect me as an officer to be about this early. Now, I dunno how the Japanese military conducts their officers, but all the officers I've ever had to deal with get up hella early, and I'm no exception. More like force of habit and conduct more than out of my own personal conviction, though. Murakumo was the only one who didn't seem all that surprised.

I brought up the thing I wanted to talk about with Samidare, about the whole dorm moving thing yesterday. Just as I'd thought, Samidare confirmed for me that subordinates in Japan didn't necessarily receive direct help from their superiors unless they were very close. I've done some months in South Korea, and there I was told that bosses go out to drink with their employees all the time; in fact, it's actually rude if you were to decline an invitation to drink with your boss, and here I was thinkin' that since Korean and Japanese people have their connections, their mannerisms would be similar. Oh, how wrong I guess I was. I can understand; I'd feel weird too if someone who's supposed to be givin' me orders suddenly drops by my room and offers to help move my shit around. Though, personally, I wouldn't care.

"But - but I'm sure we'll be able to grow closer as time goes on, Commander!"

These were Samidare's words. I don't know how true that'll become or to what extent it'll become. I don't know how I'd cope with it either way.

I mean, do I want to become close with these girls? It would be nice, but...

After breakfast, I took a quick shower and finished furnishing out my office. I meant to do this the day I got here, but setting up my room took a lot longer than I had thought, so I was planning on arranging my office yesterday, but yesterday didn't give me a chance either. Took me another hour or so - I had trouble deciding where I'd hang my sword along the wall, and eventually I settled for the wall behind my desk. Checked my emails on my laptop, and I found the documents dealing with what the ship girls're supposed to do and read through 'em.

We're going to be getting supplies for the girls' drilling and training tomorrow, along with some more secretarial personnel. Apparently the documents say that I can also choose one or so of my own ship girls to be the secretary and help me with paperwork and other pencil-pushing shit.

Wait, then what's the point of sending over that secretarial personnel.

Goddamn it.

The documents also contained the kinds of drills that the girls would need. Having drilled sailors and soldiers alike, it came natural to me. I mentioned McClellan before somewhere; I've got a talent for being able to turn ordinary young men into good soldiers. College students, jocks, poor kids off the streets who joined the navy 'cause they didn't have anything better to do that would pay them as well, doesn't matter who they are. I know how to drill them, teach them how to march, shoot, and follow my fucking orders.

In other words, I'm really good at telling people to shoot other people and telling people to go die for their country.

Whatever that means.

But obviously what I've done to drill soldiers back home, the knowledge and experience I've got doing that ain't going to transfer over neatly. No matter how you look at them, these are ordinary girls I've gotta deal with here. I can't drill them the same way expecting the same results. Like, I've seen other officers try doing the same shit they do over and over in different scenarios expecting it to work. They go all "Oh, what's yooooooooooo' name? Oh, it don't mattaaahhhh, tell me maaaahhhhh name!" while slapping the insides of their elbows with two fingers like they're slapping a heroin patch into their veins.

Seems like the girls went around today cleaning everything that I hadn't gotten to, like the dusting and the wiping. They seemed surprised that someone had already gone around and cleaned up most of the shit around the base, and when I told them it was me who did it, they were even more surprised.

Nothing else interesting happened today, since drilling doesn't start until tomorrow. We just chilled for today, so I spent today sleeping to recover from the jetlag. In fact, I woke up after six hours in the afternoon just to write this, and I'm probably going straight to bed after this.