under his thick-rimmed glasses at
the lanky mountain boy.

"How old are you, Jed," he asked.

"Nineteen."

"Lived up in the hills all those years?" Fisher inquired.

"Yup," Jed replied. "This is the furthinest I've ever been." His
normally cheerful face fell slightly. "Kinda makes me lonesome in a
way, though. Folks back home jest plain don't talk thataway one to the
other."

Fisher leaned over the edge of his bunk. "Let me tell you something,
Jed. Don't let talk like that worry you. First of all, he's no
officer. And second, he doesn't really mean it and it's just a way the
Army has of making men of us. You'll hear lots more and lots worse
before you get back to those West Virginia hills of yours."

Jed lay back down on the bunk. "Mebbe so," he admitted. "Don't mean I
gotta like it much, though. Ma never talked thataway to me, no matter
how bad a thing I done."

Jed closed his eyes and thought of home. Ought to say goodnight to Ma.
He let his mind reach out to the cabin almost two states distant.

The lights went out in the barracks, two of the crapshooters started
swinging at each other in the dark and the commotion drifted upwind to
the platoon sergeant's room in another barracks two buildings away.

In the confused yells and the shouting of Corporal Weisbaum, Jed gave
up trying to say goodnight to Ma and opened his eyes again.

The lights in the barracks came back on just as Platoon Sergeant
Mitchell walked in the front door.

The two crapshooters were tangled in a heap in the center aisle of the
barracks, still swinging. Corporal Weisbaum had the Brooklyn recruit
by the front of his T-shirt, waving a massive fist under the boy's
nose.

"AT EASE!" Mitchell boomed. The barracks shook and suddenly there was
quiet. "Now just what is going on here?" he demanded.

Weisbaum released his grip on the recruit and the two brawlers
scrambled to their feet. The corporal glared at the forty-odd recruits
in the barracks. "I warned you mush heads what would happen the next
time one of you fiddled with them lights. Now I'm gonna give you just
five minutes to fall out in front in fatigues and combat boots. MOVE!"

"Lay off," one of the recruits muttered, "nobody touched the lights.
They just went off."

Weisbaum turned a cold stare on the youngster. "Just went out, eh?
O.K. Let's see. Sergeant Mitchell, did the lights go out in your
building?"

The sergeant shook his head.

"Did you notice if the lights were o