Author's Note: In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd. – Miguel de Cervantes

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fanfiction, based on characters and situations not owned by me. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

He was a fool.

A stupid fool.

A stupid, uneducated fool.

Thomas shook his head. He had no time for this anyway, he needed to—he started to get up, sighing in frustration, dropping the book on the desk.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't do this, Colonel, I have to—"

"Dammit, Lieutenant! I don't want to hear any more about what you can't do! I wouldn't be sitting here now, if you hadn't followed our patrol to the quarry and eliminated that machine gun!"

"Sir, lobbing grenades at a machine gun nest isn't exactly the same as—"

"Yes, it is! It is exactly the same! Don't you see? Christ, Lieutenant! Your file says you have 20/10 vision, so open those baby blues and look!"

"My eyes aren't blue, sir."

Colonel Howe planted a hand on his hip. "Lieutenant, are you sassing me?"

Oh, crap! And watch out for mines! "No, sir! I was merely seeking to advise the colonel that—"

"I don't give a rat's rear end what color your eyes are, Lieutenant! I want you to study these books until they are RED! Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Then get to it, Lieutenant."

Obeying, as he must, Lt. Thomas returned to his studies.

Leon Thomas surfaced from oblivion to livid panic. The lamp is still burning! Not again! Guilt and dread tormented a mind still only half-awake. After all my promises! I didn't mean to fall asleep. I just wanted to read a few more pages—

He shuddered. He'd been too tired to stay awake, of course, and now he'd get his hide tanned again for sure. Why hadn't he blown out the lantern? Did he think they had coal oil to waste? He was lucky he hadn't burned the place down. He ran shaky fingers through his short hair. The book he'd dozed off over had drool on it. Terrific. He was so hopeless. The disappointment he felt in himself caused him actual pain. When would he learn?

He wiped off the open page with the edge of his hand. Wait, this was no novel, it was–

It was Colonel Howe's copy of the Bugle Notes.

West Point.

What a nightmare.

Leon rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with his fists. At least he wouldn't be getting a tanning.

If this all worked out as Colonel Howe hoped, one day Lieutenant Thomas would be able to say that he owed all his advantages in life to being shot in the tail.

He shifted a little. He was lying on his belly on a field hospital cot, propping himself up on his forearms so he could read the Armed Services Edition of The Science Yearbook of 1943.

His bottom hurt worse than every tanning he'd ever gotten in his life all rolled into one. The doc said they'd gotten out all the gangrene. Thank God for that and for penicillin, though he'd sure hated all those shots. He was lucky, the doc said. If he'd gotten this wound the year before, they wouldn't have had enough penicillin for the agonizing marathon of alternating shots and surgery that had resulted in a nine inch trench across the top of his right buttock.

Thomas chuckled silently. He had lost half a buttock like the people in Candide, another book he'd read to try to help him prepare for a college career at West Point. And, in this best of all possible worlds, he now had time to devote to his studies, which had been difficult to impossible in the front lines.

He sure wished he could sit down, though.