[Certain]

Vulgar: "Pockets full of goodbye letters" was one of the best turns of phrases I've read on this site. Unfortunately, the rest of this verse didn't quite match up to that high standard. Most of this verse was pretty much straight-forward wartime description, like the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan in text rap format. That's cool, and the imagery was good (though the two quotes were not), but it didn't go much deeper. Then you got to the final couplet and really went all-in on a bold and blunt metaphor. Here's the thing: That final couplet was pretty good within the context of everything I know about World War II, but within the context of the verse itself, it felt exceedingly disconnected and underdeveloped. The concept is a beautiful image, but you should have started the verse with the abandoned mine and ditched some of the wartime imagery that was a bit generic. Maybe you could have started with the "Pockets full of goodbye letters" line and moved on from there. That would have given that final line a bit more impact. As an aside: This story probably isn't set on D-Day if you found a bunch of Polish Jews in an abandoned mine, so there was another disconnect there. That said, it's a really nice metaphor worded a little clunkily that tied in well to the topic.

Dove Dozer: I gave this topic to you and Vulgar because of your military backgrounds, and I was hoping you might incorporate some of your own experiences. But this wasn't the right way to do it. This was so generic that nothing made it seem like it was specific to you. There weren't any insider anecdotes about shipping out or signing up or anything like that. The second couplet ("desert camel-backed over seas, parachuting, fifty degrees") had some potential, but you went generic from that point on. Your writing was fine. It was clean and crisp and mostly well-rhymed. But it was boring and obvious and too direct a take on the topic. You are a good storyteller, but you didn't wield it well enough here.

Vote: Vulgar