# A day in the life of a guardsman



## Dagmire (Oct 9, 2008)

A day in the life of a guardsman

Sequestered by Departmento Munitorum:
Casualties reduced and evacuation times improved as part of recruitment drive:

0230 hours and its time to get up. 
Dragging the rest of the squad out of their sleeping systems I start sorting my kit out. I make sure all my kit is in order and ready for our hunting patrol. 
I confirm I have all my ammo and plenty of drinking water, two of the most vital items in this hell hole. 
0330 and my squad is ready to move out, we lead the way to the objective area in pitch black. The green circle of my night vision goggles is the only reason I can see the trooper in front of me. Its and odd feeling moving silently through the ruined building of this once prosperous world. The only sound the occasional bark of a dog or the crackle of my vox unit. As the sun rises we reach out objective area. Going firm we await orders to begin our search of the target compounds and ruins for signs of the Ork invaders.
A few hours later, as I am wading through a shallow river of cooling water, we get the word! 
Orks are in the area.
One of the other platoons moves into the ruins of a town hall as we begin to move forwards, scouting for the ork’s encampment, although we have yet to see them we are aware of their presents. We can hear bellows and shouting coming from our front
“Cpl Grundar, your sections point” the words I have been dreading to hear. So off we go again looking for a fight 
Minuets later we find one.
Having seen what I believe to be enemy movement I get my squad into cover, forming a fire base from which to engage the green skin bastards. I activate my vox unit to call in mortars; surprise surprise just when you need it comms goes down.
I start passing information down the squad using the hand gestures taught to us in basic training. Hopefully one of the new guys doesn’t mess the signal up. 
Before our mortars can be brought to bere we are spotted and engaged, luck for me my section has deployed the heavy bolter. As the orks begin their charge across the open ground my squad engages them with rapid lasgun fire and the heavy slugs of the bolter. Our withering fire power quickly cuts down the first wave; thank the throne it’s only a small raiding party. 
My second in command takes over controlling the rate of fire as I move to the Platoon HQ to brief the boss on the enemy’s location. It’s not long before mortars and heavy artillery are raining down and the ork encampment is destroyed before they can mount a counter attack. Further up the line some one has been hit by shrapnel.
Using our scouts as a cover group we begin to evacuate the casualty to a pick up point. A medi chimera rolls in and the wounded guardsman is sped off back toward our main operating base.
Back at out patrol base I ensure all my guys are ok and that they haven’t left any trail (these orks can get sneaky at times)
An hour or so later after a vox debriefing from company command I sit down with the rest of my lads and get a cup of re-caff down my neck.
Tails of heroism are already being told as we begin to relax. 
I think about how it could have all gone wrong and about how lucky we are. In less then a day we are back out hunting yet another party of orks, trying to gain a foot hold so that our main assault can land.
What a job

Cpl Grundar, Rapid air assult, 102nd Belerphoneian guard.

Fin


Ok guys this is a little story I wrote a while back (before our fiction section picked up)

I used my time in Afganistan as .

Let me know what you think as I am sure you will all know I am not local to the fiction boards 
D


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## Spehs_Mahreen (Aug 14, 2011)

Hey Dagmire! I'll go through and do some commenting on this if you don't mind. 

My alterations and such will be in Green.
Anything I feel needs to be added will be in Yellow.



Dagmire said:


> A Day in the Life of a Guardsman
> 
> Be sure that you capitalize nouns within your title.
> 
> ...


First off, thank you for your service. 

Secondly, I do like the story, however I feel you lack much detail that is needed for the blood-stained universe of 40k. Work on that as well as separating your paragraphs more efficiently.

I hope this helped. As always, keep writing!

I look forward to more!


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## Dagmire (Oct 9, 2008)

Mr Spehs Mahreen.
Thanks alot for the feed back. I wont pretend I am any sort of writer but in the words of Sarah Cawkwell, "to get better at writing you need to write"

I wrote this before I really knew the 40k universe and as such I used my real life experiance to fill in the blanks. 

Again, thanks for taking the time to read this.
I will get better.
D


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## Ambush Beast (Oct 31, 2010)

*Hello.*

Spehs_Mahreen, I don't know where you came from since I have not seen you around here, but the advice you give is pretty cool. The time you took to section out Dagmire's work and give out positive critisism is very much needed here.

If not for other people's help, my work would still be agonizingly painfull to read. 

Dagmire, keep at it and have fun with the imagination you have. :grin:


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