Should This Man Be Smiling?

PAKISTAN'S LEADER MAY HAVE THE WORLD'S TOUGHEST JOB. HOW LONG CAN HE HOLD ON?

The 1964 edition of the rising Crescent, the yearbook of the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, a hill station north of Islamabad, is filled with nicknames and in-jokes. Graduating cadet Pervez Musharraf, then 20, is teased for his hearty appetite and preference for a center hair part. ("Has the habit of splitting hairs.") But the slim leather-bound volume is more than a collection of collegiate memories; it's also a testimonial to the camaraderie whipped up during two arduous years of grunt training in the foothills of the Himalayas. Musharraf's classmates concluded his entry: "A guy to be with, especially when in...

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