The answer may not be the last 15 minutes before I go to sleep. It may be 15 minutes a day at some other time. In the busiest of calendars there is probably more than one 15-minute period tucked away somewhere still unassigned. I’ve seen some curious solutidns to the problem of finding time for reading.
During army days in the last year of the war, I discovered a Pfc. in my squadron who seemed unusually well read. I found in his 201 file a remarkable civilian and military biography. His four years of service included two overseas, all meritorious but without heroics. Had all of his rmendations4 for promotion gone through he would have had not only hismission, but probably the rank of captain. But here he was, still a private first-class—because despite the military emphasis on education, efficiency, loyalty, and all other criteria for determining promotion, accident plays a most important part. Every time this Pfc. had been rmended for promotion, except once, he had been transferred ore up against tablel of organization limitatious, or a new change in regulations, or a superior officer who had filled out the forms incorrectly or forgotten them in his third right-hand drawer. And so he had remained a Pfc, and had taken his reward in reading. The amount he did in the army was prodigious.
I was curious about his method. And one day, before I asked him. I found a partial answer. Every day the enlisted men put in an hour of drill and formations. During that time at least one fairly long period of rest was called. Imagine my surprise on my first visit to the drill field when, at