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Someone asked me once, “How do you describe war?”

 

“War,” I responded, “you can’t describe war.”

 

They were skeptical, so I went on, “War is not something you can describe. You can know everything about war, you can read every book, but unless you have experienced war you can’t understand it.”

 

“War is dead bodies on the ground. War is hear the screams of your friends as they try to stay alive a few seconds longer. War is getting shot without knowing it. War is the blood pumping, and the shots firing, while you try your hardest to stay alive! Until they experience that, they can not know war.

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I wrote something real quick, and would like some feedback on it, if anyone cares to do so.

Second line doesn't mash too well with the first one. Might just be me, since I can't quite place why, so I'll just leave it at that.

The guy is being a bit dramatic saying "War, you can't describe war." However, being dramatic is fine, I just wonder how it fits in the context of the situation when the other person asked the question. Guess that doesn't really matter, but given the weighty response I do wonder who the two people that are having such a conversation are.

"War is hear the screams..." check this part again, maybe add a 'to' after 'is'.

When I first read "War is getting shot without knowing it" I found it a bit funny. However, with the adrenaline pumping, I realised it probably is a lot more likely to not notice a wound in the moment.

Not sure on the positioning of the exclamation mark. It can work, as it is like the narrator getting more into, then calming don for the final part. However, I still wanted to mention it since it stood out to me.

Also 'they' in the last sentence might be better if replaced with 'you'. This depends on the context of the situation, but as I'm assuming it is narrator talking to the person who asked the question, the 'they' stands out since it isn't clear who 'they' is referring to. Doesn't help that you have been using 'you' exclusively up to this point (inside the narrator dialogue).

You forgot the last closing quotation mark.

Since I haven't experienced war, I guess I can't say if your description is right or wrong, but I will mention that what you described can happen outside a war.

• Dead bodies on the ground.
• Screams of friends as they try to stay alive a few seconds longer.
• Getting shot without realising it.
• Blood pumping.
• Shots firing.
• Trying your hardest to stay alive.

But aside from that, it does paint a pretty strong image of the horrors of war. Also, due to the repetition of 'war', it is pretty clear that you are specifically talking about these things happening during a war.

TL;DR
Looks good to me. Some things stand out a bit, but that is probably because they are written differently to how I would have done it (so it looks off to me despite not actually being wrong). A missing 'to' and closing quotation mark are the only exceptions. Aside from that I'd say swap 'they' in the last sentence with 'you'.

P.S. I should mention that I like the tight focus, you also convey things very quickly here, which is a good skill to have.

The first two lines draws the image of an old, battle-scarred vet at Arlington getting questioned by a grandson (or any other small child). Was that the intended image?

I agree with the first comment. The beginning question and answer don't flow well together. I think it comes down to the use of "describe". Maybe start out with the question: "What is war?" or "What is it like to be in war?". 

Ultimately, the flow (if it had any) is ruined by the main character answering that war is indescribable and then vividly describes it.

Same on the first sentence, and just not sure about the set up of 'you can't describe war!' *proceeds to describe war*

And Zake went above and beyond but you do not get comms for critiquing a 100 word post when there were all those short stories posted just a few days before lol.

No arguments here about Zake. Though, I think the amount of effort put into my critique is justified. If someone's going to post 100 words of pure main premise contradiction, then they probably aren't going to read an in-depth critique.

I don't actually remember seeing the recent short stories. Being a new member, most of my attention is focused on that Endmaster dick dive, so been re-reading the different paths on Eternal.

Oh no I was speaking entirely to Zake with that last section, he writes those kinds of giant beautiful critiques when fishing for commendations.

Pfft, fishing? Hardly, more like foraging. Storygame comments would be fishing, actual storygames would be... fishing far away and then coming back to sell the fish after a while.

Also from what I could gather, the short stories were punishments given to people in the discord (or something), they were not written due to true desire! If I recall correctly, they didn't ask for feedback either.

Besides, at this stage I'd feel bad practising necromancy... for the older ones at least.