240,000 Miles Straight Up — L. Ron Hubbard

The Angel was First Lieutenant Cannon Gray of the United States Army Air Forces, Engineers. He was five feet two inches tall and he had golden curly hair and a face like a choir boy. Old ladies thought him wonderful and beautiful. His superiors, from the moment he had entered West Point, had found him just about the wickedest, hard drinkingest, go-to-hell splinter of steel they'd ever tried to forge.