Short Story / The Colonel

The POV character is arrogant isn’t he?  I think you do a decent job capturing how someone in that situation might actually write.  My main issue is that it is a little dull.  The interesting thing hasn’t happened yet, because he is waiting to go.

written well had me drawn in the entire time. It has strength enough lengthen.

Interesting piece.  You convey great imagry and emotion with out being overly obvious about it.  I could easily picture this man sitting in a tree just waiting to kill the enemy.  I don’t think we as civilians understand the implications and delicacies of war.  You bring those to life in this piece.  And you do it in an excellent way.  I would love to see this piece drawn out.  To know what happens with the men and their commander when they begin to fight.  What goes through their minds/  How do they react to having to kill?  Yet this piece stands alone well as it is.  There is no need for it to be more then what you have made it.  
Keep up the good work and good luck with this if you decide to change itin any way.
Beth

Interesting.  Is this going to be longer? A good piece though felt more like it should be a verse of something longer.

Not bad, I can sense the bitterness of the character, your character is quite developed in this story. The ening though just leaves me expecting more.

Interesting. This Colonel has a rather broken line of thought. His ideas are not organized into anything like a coherent storyline, this reads more like a journal entry, and less like a story.

I could see a more detailed description of the resteraunt, and its inhabitants, as a way for the Colonel to pass his time. This would create a more interesting story, and give you time and cause to describe the German officers. With a little character development you could more completely draw me in. I would like to know more about the plan of attack as well, and some of the soldiers under the Colonels command.

This is written as a soldier might right in a little pocket-sized book while waiting for a target. The problem is the Colonel is not a soldier, he is an officer. That means he has a college education, and should right as though that were the case. To that end I have included a few examples of how you could clean up this piece to make it more believable:

“Is killing the enemy any different during the day.” Needs a question mark.

“the high wind.” Indicates a specific wind. It would be more appropriate to say “high winds.”

“I’ve been sitting in this tree for the last two hours. Waiting for the German officers to finish their damned dinner.” The second of these sentences is not complete. To make this a correct sentence, simply make it one, like so “I’ve been sitting in this tree for the last two hours waiting for the German officers to finish their damned dinner.”

“It’s late 1944 the war has drug on to long anyway.” Wars don’t “drug” on. The correct past tense for drag  is “dragged”.

That said, there is a lot potential in this piece, but there is a lot of work to go to get there. Keep writing, I like your ideas!

Even though it’s primarily ‘telling’ the story instead of showing it, I think think you get away with it due to the ‘writing pad’ device.  Good idea.

I would like to see you take this experimental approach you’ve initiated and actually make it into a story. I think it will have merit to do so.

A complication of the ‘writing pad’ device is that the writing may not get any better than this Colonel is capable.  Perhaps if he is a writer, like Hemingway or something like that, then perhaps the writing could then be justified in being very good.  Just an idea.

By the way, you do a good job of resisting the urge to over-explain things.  I’ll stop now because I don’t think a review should be longer than the piece itself.

Good luck.