User blog comment:Kurt71sp2/short story/@comment-74526-20100122221211

Okay, mate. It's good in concept, just a few criticisms:


 * Put it through a spell checker, and then get someone to proof read it to further check the spelling and grammar.
 * Army and Marines Companies are up to two hundred men strong. Sixty-four men is more like two Platoons worth of soldiers.
 * Corporal Riley is said to be fresh out of Boot Camp on his first combat mission, but after getting out of Boot, you're a Private. Furthermore, the writing style heavily suggests that Riley is in command of the entire ground force. You don't give anyone but an experienced commissioned officer that job.
 * The mission ends with Riley's promotion to Second Lieutenant, but that would mean that he would have to skip about six non-commissioned ranks, and given that he's fresh out of Boot and this was only his first combat mission, it's extremely unlikely that he'd be promoted at all.
 * You say he wins three Colonial Crosses, but the Colonial Cross is equivalent to the Victoria Cross or Medal of Honour, and given the number of people who have died earning those medals, ask yourself just what he'd have to do to earn three of them.