Young Writers Society

July 1944

Dear diary,

I died yesterday, and yet here I sit writing in my journal as if nothing has happened. I died. I watched my body being taken down from a tree hanging from my white parachute. I screamed and cried while my commander ordered my body to be sent home to Alabama, and yet no one heard me. I yelled and yelled and waited for the angel of death to take me away, and yet here I sit . . . waiting. All I can do now is watch and wait for my time to come. Time to come? yeah as if some one like me has a chance of steppin inside those pearly gates. Saint Peter would laugh at me and send me packing to my own kin. Right back down here. I guess if you don't have the honor of dwellin with God they just leave you on Earth now, in your own personal hell. I bet you're interested in how I died... Well Here it goes.

"Go! Go! Go! We're over the drop zone!" The airman stood by the drop ramp, waving his arms forward. Every non-skin forming piece of clothing flapped in the breeze like a fish out of water.

"This is it Jalen! See you on the ground!" Those were the last words Jimmy (Jimbo) Fischer ever spoke to me. He dove out of the back of our glider and commenced parachuting behind enemy lines. I followed right after him, the frigid French air stinging my lungs as I dove head over heels, plummeting to the ground below.

Air whistling past my ears, I pulled my rip-cord and was tugged upward. The night air around me filled up with thousands of parachutes. The mass invasion of Normandy had begun, and I was in the heart of it. My unit, the 101st Airbourne, was going to distract German armor and secure key bridges and land masses to halt the German defense forces from defending the beach head. This was our mission, and we did not fail. I was part of the screaming eagles, America's Go-to force when a butt whooping was needed, and we do not fail.

As we plummetted groundward, German Flak-88's opened up fire on our troops. Jimbo being closer to the ground and in range of the explosive shrapnel rounds, was torn to shreds right before my eyes, along with a dozen other men from my company.

We were all left defenseless and open to harm from the large land-to-air guns. Plane after plane, man after man went down from the airborn shrapnel; deadly stingers flew through the air ripping through armor and flesh alike with no remorse.

Being completely defenseless, all I could do was watch as a missile launched, fiery tail in pursuit, over my head detonating just feet above me. Shrapnel showered down, ripping my parachute and colliding with my helmet. Losing control of my descent, a shard of metal smacked into the rear of my helmet, sending me into an unconscious spiral, spinning towards my death, me being none the wiser.

In other news, no sign of Jimbo anywhere, I've looked. I seem to be the only dead person still around here. The only thing I can interact with is my journal. I don't feel the breeze, the sun, the soft grass, nothing. This life will be interesting

Hey Tm,
I'm interested in WWII and liked your telling of it. If you need to do any research, I found this Time article on the parachuters of Normandy that had actual experiences. Here's the website: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101440619-640079,00.html

TmB317 wrote:Every non-skin forming piece of clothing flapped in the breeze, rapidly like a fish out of water.
THe comma needs to come after rapidly.

"This is it Jalen! See you on the ground!"
There needs to be a comma before Jalen, because Jimmy is addressing Jalen.

Those were the last words Jimmy (Jimbo) Fischer ever spoke to me.
I don't know if this is necessarily wrong, but I've always seen nicknames in quotation marks not parentheses.

This is our mission, and we do not fail.
When you say "we do not fail" does that mean any missions or this one. If it's only this mission, it should be "we will not fail."

We are the screaming eagles, America's Go-to force when a butt whooping was needed, and we will not fail.
Here the verb tenses don't match up. "We are ... whooping was needed." Was needs to be is. I do like the pride he shows in his unit. I feel like it's realistic.

Plane after plane, glider after glider, man after man went down from the airborn shrapnel; deadly stingers flying at mach one speeds flying through the air ripping through armor and flesh alike with no remorse.
Because you're only describing the shrapnel and the sentence after the semicolon is actually a fragment, you only need a comma.

Being completely defenseless, all I could do was watch as a missile launched, fiery tail in pursuit, over my head detonating just twenty feet above me. Shrapnel showered down, ripping my parachute and colliding with my helmet. Losing control of my descent, a shard of metal smacked into the rear of my helmet, sending me into an unconscious spiral, spinning towards my death, me being none the wiser.

This paragraph was good. I would have liked more feeling and emotion behind it though. What is he thinking as he is watching this missle come toward him, knowing he's about to die?

This was very good. I like your writing style, and so far, I like the characters. If you need someone to review your next chapter just pm me.
Megsug

hey man! way cool beginning. I think you could go a lot of different ways with this story. I'm excited to read the rest of it! I'm guessing your going to be focusing on the whole "why am i still here?" thing which will be interesting to see your reasoning behind it. Maybe you should delve into the fact of why he thinks he wouldn't be allowed into heaven? But whatevs you write I'm sure will be resonating with awesomeness see ya later man!

Hey,
I'm here to review this agian. I'm glad you liked my review. I just... Wow. The first thing I thought, honestly, was 'Oh no, here we go. Another ghost telling their story.' But you did a great job. I don't like calling things cliches, so I was glad you could make this better. Now, I get to nitpick a little.

TmB317 wrote:July 1941?
This is way too early. The amphibious landing occured June 6, 1944, if you're still talking about the invasion of Normandy. The parachuters did land earlier but it was the night before, if I remember correctly, not three years prior.
What's with the question mark?


I screamed and cried while my commander ordered my body to be sent home to Alabama, and yet no one heard me.
I'm not sure things would happen so quickly, but I have no real idea.

I yelled and yelled and waited for the angel of death to take me away, and yet here I sit . . . waiting.
Yet is a conjunction all by itself. Since you have so many ands in this sentence. I would get rid of the last one just to decrease repetition.

time to come? yeah as if some one like me has a chance of steppin inside those pearly gates.
You didn't capitalize these two sentences. Maybe you meant to leave the g off of stepping, but then you need an apostrophe.

Well Here it goes.
Lowercase H.

P.s. No sign of Jimbo anywhere...
I'm not sure what this means. The s needs to be capitalized.

That's all I could see. The redo was great. I'm ready for chapter two. Tell me when you have something else posted.
Megsug

Well, typically this isn't the kind of thing I enjoy reading, but it was actually okay. Leave it to a boy to write about war stuff, but you did a very good job. Few complaints. Keep up the good work