A World War II friend of mine has asked me to design a card. All I have is AE CS4 and the fonts don't look good that small. Neither does the photo of the medal.
Is there any way to improve the quality, without spending tons of money?
Sounds like you need to increase the resolution of the project file before adding text. Make it something really high like 1200ppi just to be on the safe side. Looks like yours was really low (like 50-100ppi)