Interesting piece. I liked the fact that the fate of the free world doesn't hinge on the mission at the beginning. Even though it's dramatic, violent and likely traumatic for Courtney, it's almost feel routine. I like that Courtney has a life and a mind outside of the service. I really like that he has some unpopular attitudes, even if they are based and logic and not emotion or prejudice.
My suggestion is to be careful with acronyms. SBS, SDV and MOD are likely unknown to people outside of the British Army. Even common military/intelligence acronyms like RPG and HUMINT might be worth at least spelling out.
I like this piece. I like that it isn't about patriotism or the horrors of combat which is so common in military pieces. I like that it is a about a simple pleasure in a piece of the military that is common between every enlisted member of every branch of the military. Personally, I find the slice of life stories, both while deployed and at home station, the most interesting.
Overall, I think this piece can stand as is with no significant corrections.
But a few thoughts:
1. I think it would add to the story to know a bit more about the friend's reaction to reading the narrator's mother's letter the first time, and some hints on how he felt at all the shared letters.
2. I think it would be worthwhile to give some details of the narrator's thoughts, feelings and reaction to the friend's sister's inquiry. I'm not suggesting adding a romantic arc to the story, but more giving the narrator evidence he hasn't been forgotten at home and a reminder there is a normal world outside of the isolation and weirdness of basic.
3. Consider reworking the last paragraph. I can tell you your thoughts in the last paragraph are real. When I was in Iraq, we had internet access and I got to check my email most evenings. I appreciated emails, even from strangers. There was a power mailed letters have that email never will. Someone took the time to write, had actually touched the paper, put it in an envelope, and mailed it. In a very cliched way, I carried a few letters around. Twenty years later, I still have most of the letters I received in Iraq. Consider removing the question of whether mail call is important in the modern digital age. Change it to a certainty that even in the digital age, mail call is important and letters still have unique power for many of the reasons they did between Korea and Vietnam.
I like the piece. Some thoughts based on the assumption you'd like to keep it as a short piece:
1. Given how important it is that Hana is Korean, I'm wondering if a dozen paragraphs into the story is a bit late to introduce such a central point.
2. Given the short format of the story, I'm wondering if the initial scene with Emily adds enough to the story to warrant the amount of real estate it occupies. I completely understand that in a longer piece, fairly lengthy passages like this are appropriate for character development. I like that it makes her a normal person and not a superspy or CIA analyst, but you might consider shortening it so that you'll have more room to develop the main story. Some possible ways to shorten this section: You might drop the discussion about the ex-boyfriend. You might move the scene that doesn't need as much lead in, like the lobby of the building after she leaves the class.
3. I'm wondering if Hana needs something beyond a good dissertation to warrant her briefing the President. The US and North Korea have been glaring down gun barrels at each other since 1953. I would think all of the major intelligence agencies would have entire departments dedicated entirely to analyzing how the Kims thing. Consulting Hana to provide input to a briefing that will go before the president because of her dissertation is within reason. Having her brief the President directly seems less credible. It might even be worth making her stand out feature a bit far fetched might make her briefing the President credible. What if her father was a highly placed NK government official that worked closely with the Kims before they defected to South Korea? Or she was close friends with Kim Jong Un when he was going to school in Europe?
4. Consider reducing the length of the lead in to this story and expanding from the point where the FBI picks her up. I'm thinking this would be overwhelmingly disconcerting. We get glimpses that Hana isn't a shrinking violet, but getting abruptly yanked out of academia in the middle of the night and shoved into a foreign relations crisis would put anybody off balance. The FBI shows up in the middle of the night and implying they are willing to force her to come with them. Professionally polite agents that claim she's not in trouble, but won't explain anything. A Helicopter ride for somebody that isn't used to them are uncomfortable (noise, rapid changes in altitude, etc). Landing in the White House lawn. Details about these sorts of things from somebody that isn't used to them would be great.
5. I like the two scenes where Hana demonstrates she isn't meek. The one where she tells the agents she's going to take a shower and the other where she tells Friedman she knows him, almost sounding like she's annoyed. This part of her is worth expanding. Maybe when she does the shower, she's terrified but refuses to go along with them without at least a bit of resistance. Maybe by the time she meets Friedman, she's tired of being afraid and frustrated to the point where she lashes out a bit. I'd say run with that detail about her, and add some depth to it.
I like Hana. North Korea is locked down enough that I've read that accurate intelligence is difficult. If you can make something unique about her knowledge of North Korea, I can see how this event could make her a significant player in the intelligence world and lead to more stories.
I like this. It contrasts expectations with the reality of combat.
I like the repetition of "What could go wrong?" It could have a couple meanings. The soldier has thoroughly convinced himself everything will be fine, or he is trying to convince himself everything will be fine. Given that you left him anonymous, both can be true at the same time (a Schrödinger's cat sort of thing).
The one detail I question is in the first paragraph: "He hated smoking - it reminded him of the smoldering of an artillery shell after it destroyed a foxhole with your best friend in it." This statement leads me to believe the soldier is a combat veteran. It seems unlikely that someone who knew what it smelled like when a friend gets blown apart by an artillery shell would believe nothing could go wrong on an amphibious landing on a defended beach. This line also takes some of the anonymity away from the main character by suggesting he's a combat veteran.
Consider having cigarette smoke remind him of something like the clouds of cigarette smoke in the cramped bays of the troops ships where he felt helpless and in fear of getting torpedoed. This could tie nicely into his dislike of ships. They make him feel helpless. Give him his rifle, put him on the beach away from the ships and the cigarette smoke and he'll be a powerful warrior, not a helpless passenger.
The title is elegant. I take the title to represent the central theme of the story, the opposing world views of the two characters "bosses", God and the army. The soldier representing the Army's practical, somewhat fatalistic world view that passage through the mountains is impossible and the travelers deaths are guaranteed. Eleazar representing a spiritual view that God will see them through the mountains.
I like how this is a snapshot. It doesn't detail which "boss" is right. For all the reader knows, both views may be right.
I like how the two world views are demonstrated during the conversation without being specifically stated.
I like how neither side gives an inch, but their confrontation isn't overly dramatic. The Army's view is they can die if they want to. The travelers' view is they will be fine and don't need anybody's help.
Just a couple minor specifics:
Calling the soldier "it" in the first few paragraph feel awkward, especially since he is referred to as "the soldier" later in the piece. I personally think it dehumanizes both the soldier and Eleazar, which I think weakens the piece a little. It makes me think Eleazar doesn't even see the soldier as a human being, just an "it". This seems to make the soldier feel a bit cruel, which he isn't. It also seems to make Eleazar seem a bit detached from reality which I don't think is the intent.
This is minor: It seems unlikely the soldier would have come up to the wagon train alone. Since he refers to "my orders" in paragraph 7, I assume he's probably the commander of the patrol. It seems like he'd bring at least a trooper or two along with him.
This is also minor: It feels weird that the soldiers aren't patrolling the trail, but are at the bottom of a valley while the trail is higher up. It seems like it would be more plausible that the patrol's commander would be alone if his patrol met the wagon train on the trail. He might call his troop to a halt at a bit of a distance and ride the short distance to talk to Eleazar.
I really like the simplicity of this piece. The poem does a wonderful job of portraying corruption, hopelessness, arrogance. Because of the few words in the poem, the title becomes very important. Even the position of the title above the poem can be taken to have significance: above gods play games, below the mortals lose.
Short short poems are hard to do, and I think you did a nice job with this one.
Interesting piece. It's unsettling, but I'm thinking that is what you were trying for.
I like that the first line is "The end". I think you should consider dropping the last line. Not having the second end, "How will my tale end", and ending it with "A hand of a loved one" almost makes the poem feel backward with "The end" at the beginning, and no real ending at the end.
Overall: I really like this poem. The first two stanza isolate the narrator, sets an unpleasant tone, drops the reader into an immediate problem, and almost makes the reader a bit paranoid. The rest of the poem puts depth to the feelings and stretches the immediate problem into a chronic feeling.
I love the first two stanzas, they have a chaotic, fast rhythm that seems like eyes jerking around a loud, crowded room or the fast, staccato notes of a drum. Perfectly unnerving.
In this case, I like "they". It turns it into a world vs. the narrator scenario which I am positive was intended. This narrator is alone in a crowded world.
Stanza 3, line 2: This stanza has a nice sort of "two stroke" rhythm that is somewhat interrupted by line 2. It would be awsome to maintain this rhythm while retaining the meaning of this line. Off the top of my head, I can't suggest a way to do that.
Stanza 5, line 4: The fact that the narrator has a "one true love" suddenly, almost jarringly makes the narrator less alone. Consider changing this line to "I choose to" would seem to maintain their isolation, but also tie in nicely to the courage shown in this stanza's first two lines.
Stanza 6, line 4: I like this line, but it clashes with the last line of the previous stanza. If the narrator has a true love, it seems that at least that person would try to understand. If the narrator is receiving nothing, it brings into question the value of the true love. I think this is another reason to change the true love line.
Very nicely done.
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