When I was a baby, I was sure that kindergarten was going to be the challenge of my life.
When I was in kindergarten, I was looking forward to my first day of school, knowing that it was going to be a new adventure - a challgenging one, but an adventure nonetheless.
When I was in school, I yearned for those easy days back in kindergarten, knowing that the real challenge, the 'Big, wide world' was upon me.
And now as I'm standing here ... I can only laugh about these infantile thoughts.
My name is Sun- I mean ... Stormtrotter, and today is the first day of my academic training to become a soldier of the Canterlot Royal Guard.
Three of the hardest months of my whole life lay ahead of me. Three months in which I am going to learn the true meaning of the word 'commitment'; three months in which I will be pushed to the very limits of my physical and mental capabilities, and three months in which I am going to experience a kind of exhaustion I would have never even thought possible.
...
Sweet Celestia, I sure wish I was back in Kindergarten.
I like the general tone and feel of the story, and I'm certainly looking forward to seeing where you take Sunny Oats.
I am wondering, however, how closely you meant the military you're portraying to mirror real-world militaries. The Equestrian military is obviously a whole different animal, but as much of the show is based off of or parallels the real world, and specifically the US, so I figured I ought to ask. I can only speak for the US Army, but there are a few things: 'Aye' is used by naval branches, not army and you don't refer to NCOs (the various flavors of Sergeant) as 'sir', they take it as an insult.
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Thanks, I'm glad you like it so far!
As for the story's accurancy to real-life military: I do agree that the army depicted in the story isn't 100% accurate to the US-Army - which makes sense considering that I don't have any personal experience with life in the Army (only been in the German Navy so far) and my only source of information on that topic were movies and the internet.
However, I never intended it to be completely accurate to the US-military, simply because a) there would be way too many details I would miss and b) fact is, each military institution has its own individual characteristics, rules, forms of speaking, etc. depending on where you go, so I guess there is no certain way of saying what is realistic and what isn't.
With that said, I did try to keep it somewhat accurate to what I know about the military (also based on some of my own experiences) but knowing that -especially when it comes to the details- there will always be something left out or simply not accurate enough, I instead aimed for the Equestrian army to be a little different from real life military.
But I'm glad you pointed that out anyway. Once again, thanks for the feedback, and I hope you'll like the future chapters ^_^
An interesting premise that is well written.
Proceed
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I thought it might be something along those lines. You're right, there are always going to be more details than the ones you caught. I'm glad you're takiing a fresh look on it rather that patterning it too closely to real world militaries. Equestria, after all, is a very different place. I look forward to seeing how you develop it!