Line #53 BadassBookworm/RealLife


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2	* Due to the combination of mandatory military conscription by the state and the cultural emphasis on education in Judaism, [[BadassIsraeli Israel]] produces a number of these.
3	* When he wasn't conquering new lands for the mighty Assyrian Empire or razing the Elamite civilisation to the ground, Assurbanipal was quite a scholar. He even set up one of the oldest libraries in the world, the Library of Nineveh, predating the Library of Alexandria by 400 years.
4	* UsefulNotes/TELawrence. Yes, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence that]] Lawrence. Who by chance is also an [[Film/LawrenceofArabia example in film]]. There was also a badass Czech/Austrian [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Musil theologist]] working against him.
5	* Any Finnish conscript who is to be trained to become a Reserve Officer; unless he is a GeniusBruiser. Reserve officer education in the Finnish forces is both very intellectually and very physically demanding, especially if one is to become a Ranger or Combat Engineer officer.
6	* Creator/LudwigWittgenstein. He's commonly known as an outstandingly influential philosopher. What's less known is that he was also an exceptionally brave soldier in WWI.
7	* UsefulNotes/NeilDeGrasseTyson. Astronomer, Director of the Hayden Planetarium, wrestler and boxer in school and still, as he told an interviewer "a nerd who could kick your butt."
8	* Jamie Hyneman of ''Series/MythBusters'' is also a brainy geek who's repeatedly demonstrated his excellent badassery with firearms (for example, he did the ScopeSnipe test, firing freehand ''without a scope'' on his rifle). In another episode, he smashed the locks off a door, barehanded. Plus calmly reporting the situation with a steady voice ''while being buried alive''. Also worth noting that before he was in Mythbusters, he was an owner of a Caribbean salvage diving company, animal wrangler, and a wilderness survival expert. He also has a bachelor's degree in Russian linguistics.
9	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_P._Bolger Daniel P. Bolger]], writer and soldier.
10	* French organist and composer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehan_Alain Jehan Alain]] later became a dispatch rider for the French army in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. When he encountered a group of German soldiers while on his motorcycle, he left his bike behind and charged into battle. He managed to [[OneManArmy kill 16 of them]] before he was tragically [[DyingMomentOfAwesome gunned down]].
11	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liviu_Librescu Dr. Liviu Librescu]], Romanian-born Holocaust survivor, pioneering scientist and [[BadassTeacher professor of engineering]]. During the Virginia Tech massacre, Librescu [[YouShallNotPass personally kept the door shut]] to prevent gunman Seung-hui Cho from entering the classroom while his students escaped out the windows. He was [[MadeOfIron shot through the door five times]] before finally succumbing to a shot to the head. He had a history, since surviving the Holocaust takes a {{Determinator}} in itself...
12	* Perhaps the best example though was UsefulNotes/AlfredTheGreat, King of Wessex and arguably the founder of England. He was bookworm to the Nth degree and he was badass to the Nth degree. He was a great scholar, fond of theology, philosophy, and the classical lore from the Romans and before. He was also a great warrior and could earn the devotion of his followers at a time when kings were expected to fight beside their men. He codified laws, encouraged learning, and organized a military system that could protect against the Danes.
13	* Henry Knox. He started out as a bookseller in Boston, who read all the books on military science as they came in. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Washington put him in charge of the artillery corps. He moved '''sixty tons of cannon''' overland, through mountains, from Ft. Ticonderoga to Boston and drove the British fleet from the harbor. Knox shared Washington's boat during the crossing of the Delaware and wound up as the nation's first Secretary of War.
14	* Creator/RoaldDahl was an AcePilot in the Second World War. Yes, [[Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory THAT]] Roald Dahl. What is arguably more badass is when the war broke out he had to round up all the German people in the town in Africa where he lived. He managed to stop them from escaping with only one death on his hands. Oh, and he did this without any training, being told it was his responsibility only the day before.
15	* [[UsefulNotes/AntebellumAmerica Frederick Douglass]] taught himself to read and was an excellent orator. He also gave such a bad beatdown to a slavedriver known as "The negro breaker" in defense of himself that the slavedriver never tried to raise a hand against him again.
16	* UsefulNotes/MalcolmX was a former criminal who was so good with numbers that he was able to run a lottery without ever writing down the tickets. After spending time in prison and becoming a member of the Nation of Islam, he gave himself an extensive education, including reading the dictionary cover-to-cover, and carefully studying Gregor Mendel's ''Findings in Genetics'', H.G. Wells' ''Outline of History'', and the works of Schopenhauer and Kant. When he got out of prison, he quickly became one of the most celebrated and feared civil rights leaders in the country.
17	* Huey P. Newton taught himself to read using the works of Plato, then later taught himself the law in order to become a better criminal. He defended himself in court whenever he got caught. After reforming his old ways and forming the Black Panther Party, he kept a law book in his car at all times. When the Panthers would go on their armed patrols, they were meticulous about staying within the bounds of the law, and when they saw a person being arrested or harassed by the police, they would often cite the legal regulations the officer was breaking.
18	* UsefulNotes/MuhammadAli is best known for being a nearly unbeatable champion boxer, but he was also a masterful poet who came up with rhyming taunts on the fly. Later in life, he also became a voracious reader, amassing a knowledge of Islamic literature and the works of Sufi mystics that would put traditional scholars to shame.
19	* UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr is known in the United States as ''the'' BadassPacifist. It's easy to forget that before his activism, he a full-time Baptist minister with a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology. Iconic images of his personal library shows that it was enormous, and contained everything from the Bible to the works of Mahatma Gandhi to the works of Aristotle, Saint Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.
20	* While he never really went out ass-kicking, the fact remains that Niels Bohr, second-most important theoretical physicist of the 20th century, aka "The Great Dane", was a huge, two-meters tall athlete known for always taking two stairs at once, even in old age. Ernest Rutherford, an experimental physicist with a pronounced dislike for theorists, once remarked, "Bohr is different. He plays football."
21	** Niels Bohr was the model for Creator/PoulAnderson's character of Holger Dansk in ''Literature/ThreeHeartsAndThreeLions'', a big, burly, American Football-playing Danish-born university grad, who is thrown across the dimensions onto a parallel Earth, and uses his scientific skills to work out how to kill dragons and what ''really'' happens when a troll is converted to rock at the onset of sunlight. (transmuting carbon to silicon creates a huge amount of radioactivity as a byproduct)
22	* Creator/LeonardoDaVinci was allegedly able to bend iron horseshoes straight. He also used a gun of his own design to kill soldiers attacking the city of Florence from 300 yards away. Good shooting even compared to modern-day soldiers. Leonardo da Vinci was an artist first and foremost and lived on the art commissions of wealthy patrons. However, in his resume to Cesare Borgia, he did rather focus on his engineering skills, throwing in painting as an afterthought.
23	* Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is a particularly striking example of this trope. Before he joined the Union Army in the civil war, he was a professor at Bowdoin College. At the Battle of Gettysburg he commanded the 20th Maine. Not only was he awarded multiple honors for bravery in combat, including the Medal of Honor, but he also received wounds that should have been fatal, not once but twice, and was wounded ''six times'' total during the war. He survived the war and went back to teaching. By the end, he had taught every subject except mathematics. [[note]] Ironically, his wounds ''did'' eventually kill him, decades later.[[/note]]
24	* Francis Lovell, later Viscount Lovell. Boyhood best friend of Richard III, he was as much a bookish scholar as Richard was an accomplished warrior. However, upon hearing that Richard had been killed in battle against Henry Tudor, he proceeded to ''lead a revolution'' against Tudor in order to put Richard's heir on the throne, including leading the army into battle. The fact that the revolt ultimately failed does not in any way decrease the utter awesome badassery of that.
25	* UsefulNotes/RichardIII himself was a HandicappedBadass/intellectual who was instrumental in helping his older brother UsefulNotes/EdwardIV (who was many things but not an intellectual) retake the throne at the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury. Richard owned an extensive library of books, which included topics like history, theology and philosophy, and he personally made notes in the margins. His collection even included an English language Bible. As king, he lifted the restriction on the selling of printed books, and he had all the laws translated from Old French into English, so commoners could understand them. His best friend Francis Lovell (see above) mostly likely gifted Richard with an illuminated Book of Hours as a coronation gift.
26	* Creator/{{Socrates}} served as a foot soldier in three major Athenian campaigns. He once escorted Alcibiades, one of his superiors, through a chaotic battle back to safety by himself. He gathered a number of hoplites around him, made faces at the Theban cavalry until they decided to seek easier prey. Then he ''walked'' away. The other Athenians either ran or died.
27	* Creator/{{Plato}} was a champion wrestler. He might count instead as a GeniusBruiser, however: "plato" means "broad," and he was named such for his broad shoulders.
28	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton Sir Richard Francis Burton]]. In this case, truth is far more awesome than fiction.
29	* Insofar as his appearance on film is concerned, Lieutenant John Chard, (British Army) Royal Engineers probably qualifies. Oh, you don't know who he is? Well, there's this little confrontation called the Battle of Rorke's Drift where about 100 English soldiers held off four thousand Zulus. John Chard was the commanding officer during the battle.
30	* Saxton Pope was a doctor and surgical instructor at the University of California who became close friends with [[LastOfHisKind Ishi, the last member of almost certainly the last 'uncontacted' First Nation tribe.]] He picked up a plethora of ancient skills from him, [[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8084 wrote the book on modern fieldcraft and bowhunting]], and ''killed [[BearsAreBadNews grizzly bears]] using home-made bows and arrows''.
31	* Creator/SiegfriedSassoon: These days, his reputation is as an anti-war war poet. What's often forgotten is that he was just as good at waging war as writing about it, including a single-handed attack on a German trench (which got him a medal) and numerous other near-suicidal exploits. Unlike fellow warrior-poet Wilfred Owen (equally brave and equally decorated), he managed to die of old age.
32	* UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln, well-known as a bookworm, is often cited as performing ridiculous feats of physical strength with little to no effort. And then there was the time he was challenged to a duel of his choice, and he chose [[http://web.archive.org/web/20060630083651/http://www.failedsuccess.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/abraham_lincoln_duel/ broadswords in a pit.]] He also fought pirates and worked for a time as an amateur wrestler, during which time he reportedly ''invented'' the choke-slam when an opponent stomped on his feet.
33	* UsefulNotes/WilliamHowardTaft was well-known in school for not being the brightest student, but studying ten times as hard to make up for it. In adulthood, he was a professor at Yale and the only president to have also been a Supreme Court justice. He was also a championship heavyweight wrestler who went undefeated his entire career.
34	* Dr. Ruth Westheimer -- yes, THAT Dr. Ruth -- was a sniper. At 16. She had joined Haganah, an underground Jewish military, where they discovered she was deadly accurate with a sniper rifle and with tossed hand grenades.
35	* Modern snipers in general are this, due to how much mathematics are involved to make shots from such a ridiculous distance. It's not ImprobableAimingSkills that make them this, it's their high-powered rifle and their ability to ''effectively weaponize math''. Those conscripts who are trained to be snipers in the Finnish Army must have IQ 120 or higher. For a sniper trainee, high intelligence, calmness, and 3D awareness is more important than shooting skills. Sharp shooting can be honed, while intelligence is innate.
36	* Isaac Barrow, Newton's old teacher and predecessor as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, was a brawler who, while traveling in the Middle East, was credited with driving off pirates who attacked the ship on which he was a passenger with his ferocious swordsmanship.
37	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosh%C3%A9_Feldenkrais Moshé Feldenkrais]]. Physicist, WWII Naval Science officer, Judo expert.
38	* Brigadier General Nathanael Greene, the youngest general in the US Continental Army at 33, learned everything he knew about warfare from books. That he taught himself to read. He went on to join the revolutionary effort despite a strong limp and a nonviolent religious background-people called him "The Fighting Quaker"
39	* Kim Komenich, professor and photojournalist. Also the [[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pulitzer-prize-winning-photographer-kim-komenich-foils-attempted-bank-robbery-with-bear-hug/ bane of stupid bank robbers]].
40	* Doc Holliday, of OK Corral fame, was a well-known shootist and gambler. He was also a practicing dentist.
41	* Pioneers of aeronautics mostly were their own test pilots, with everything this implies: wings of wood and tarp, balls of tool steel. One of the last cases was R.E. Alexeev, constructor of Soviet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_vehicle WIGs]]. Once an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsflgNPxz_0 Eaglet]] landed on the rocks. In a later practice flight, the pilot slams this machine in a wave when landing. Some instruments in the cockpit shut down, but takeoff engines on the nose are still heard. Alexeev jumps the controls and sets the remaining engines to full throttle, then takes one look from a top hatch, says ''"To the base."'' and takes the place of the pilot. They run about 40 km like this, land, then commission members disembark and discover what this was about -- ''the tail is broken off''.
42	* Howard Hughes. Many of the airplanes he designed were built from his experience as an airplane racer, and he had little former education in how to build or design aircraft, but went on to make some of the most influential designs in post-UsefulNotes/WW1 aviation. When he crashed the XF-11 in 1946, he ended up grievously injured and confined to a bed. Deciding he did not like the bed, he ended up dictating a design that had hot and cold running water and push-button adjustments. He was also the archetypal millionaire playboy. [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Bruce Wayne]] [[ComicBook/IronMan and Tony Stark]] were both heavily inspired by Hughes.
43	** Not to mention being involved in a lot of clandestine espionage projects for the US government, possibly using his supposed wackiness as cover. One of his well-known exploits involve an attempt to retrieve a Soviet nuclear submarine that sank after an accident in deep waters in the Pacific while claiming to explore possibility of mining the ocean depth for valuable minerals. The project did not succeed, or that is the official word at any rate.
44	* Alexander de Seversky, eventually an American aviation engineer, airplane manufacturer, and an influential air power theorist. He began his career as possibly the first Russian fighter ace, flying for the Tsar's (naval) air force during World War I, despite losing a leg in air combat.
45	* F. Story Musgrave: computer scientist, chemist, mathematician, medical doctor, and biophysicist. Went into space six times. On his last mission, he stood up during re-entry to film, taking 1.7 Gs. He was SIXTY-ONE at the time. Also went back to school to get a master's degree in Literature ''so he could properly express what he'd seen and done''.
46	* UsefulNotes/AlexanderHamilton and Nathan Hale.
47	** [[Theatre/{{Hamilton}} How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by Providence, impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?]] He survived illness at about eleven years old, immigrated to the US, fought in the American Revolutionary War, served as George Washington's aide, was the first Treasury Secretary of the United States, founded a newspaper (New York Post) that is still running to this day, established the US' entire economic system (and the National Bank) that his enemies tried and failed to disband. Hamilton's incredible (and destructive) work ethic can be summed up with this quote from the aforementioned stage show:
48	-->"Alexander joins forces with James Madison and John Jay to write a series of essays defending the new United States Constitution, entitled The Federalist Papers. The plan was to write a total of twenty-five essays, the work divided evenly among the three men. In the end, they wrote eighty-five essays, in the span of six months. John Jay got sick after writing five. James Madison wrote twenty-nine. Hamilton wrote the other fifty-one!"
49	* Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson comes across as a quiet smart guy in interviews. He climbed [[{{Determinator}} Mt. Everest with a broken leg.]]
50	* UsefulNotes/WongFeiHung. Not only was he a doctor, but he ran a militia too.
51	* A.J. Ayer. To quote from his biography: "Ayer was . . . chatting to a group of young models and designers, when a woman rushed in saying that a friend was being assaulted in a bedroom. Ayer went to investigate and found Mike Tyson forcing himself on a young south London model called Naomi Campbell . . . Ayer warned Tyson to desist. Tyson: 'Do you know who the f$*k I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world.' Ayer stood his ground: 'And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both preeminent in our field; I suggest that we talk about this like rational men.' Ayer and Tyson began to talk. Naomi Campbell slipped out." He was 77 at the time.
52	** During WWII, Ayer was an agent for both the SOE and [=MI6=].
53	* There was a US Navy exercise which involved having a team Navy [=SEALs=] attempt to take over an [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibious_assault_ship amphibious assault ship]] on their own. They had succeeded in taking over most of the ship and had neutralized most of the security, but were held off by the ship's engineers who armed themselves with tools and pieces of pipe and used safety netting to restrict the areas of approach.
54	* Creator/{{Confucius}}. Despite being the founder of a notoriously dorky, scholarly philosophy, he was said to be tall and strong. The arts he taught included rites, music, arithmetic, literature, archery, and chariotry, the last two being martial in nature. Eastern ideals of “warrior-gentleman” such as Japan’s “bunbu ryōdō” were influenced by this.
55	* Uwe Boll is known for challenging critics who pan his films to boxing matches because he apparently has some boxing experience. He tried to challenge gaming critic Creator/{{Seanbaby}} to a match, but backed off when he learned that Seanbaby was a fairly large kickboxer.
56	* As it is mandatory for men to serve in the Army in Finland (nowadays there's also civil service though), the majority of Finnish men have military training and skills, no matter what they do. Finnish president Mauno Koivisto served as a ranger squad leader in the long-range troops of Lauri Törni - later known as Larry Thorne. Koivisto holds the degree of Doctor in Sociology.
57	* UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky was an intellectual with no military experience, but still managed to found the red army and lead it to victory against its many enemies. A few times he even got personally involved, mainly by rallying fleeing red army soldiers. According to the historian Paul Johnson, Trotsky seriously pissed off the rest of the Politburo by reading novels during the meetings instead of discussing business. Now that's a ''real'' bookworm. [[DyingMomentOfAwesome He even managed to pin his assassin while an ice pick was sticking out of his head]].
58	* Eric Greitens is a Rhodes scholar with a doctorate in politics from Oxford University who wrote his dissertation on how humanitarian organizations can best help children affected by war. After he got his Ph.D., he decided he was up for another challenge, so he ''became a Navy SEAL.''
59	* Marxist revolutionary [[UsefulNotes/CheGuevara Ernesto 'Che' Guevara]], MD; also a literary and philosophical commentator.
60	* Due to importance put on both theory and praxis, most of Bolsheviks fitted this trope: for example, Lenin was the leader of the UsefulNotes/RedOctober and the one who described imperialism from a Marxist point of view (that's why it's called Marxism-Leninism now). But the most egregious example was probably Andrei Zhdanov, who was both the head of the reorganization of Soviet philosophy, art and literature ''and'' the man behind the defense of Leningrad during [=WW2=].
61	* George Scovell, cavalryman and intelligence officer.
62	* UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat of Prussia wrote music, poetry, history, political propaganda, satires, etc. as well as textbooks on warfare (including an art of war written entirely in verse) and an attempt to rebut ''Literature/ThePrince''. And he personally commanded the Prussian army through some of the bloodiest and most hard-fought campaigns of the 18th century. His brother, the well-read and somewhat short prince Heinrich (Henry) was another such example. His brother Frederick called him the only commander of the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar who did not make a single mistake.
63	* Gerhard von Scharnhorst reorganized the Prussian army for the Wars of Liberation. Many other officers looked down on him because of his lowly peasant origins, his unassuming appearance (in particular his skinny legs), and because he was best known for writing several textbooks and his teaching at Hanoverian and Prussian military schools. However, he relished getting into combat, was wounded several times, picked up a musket so he could be the last officer to leave the battlefield after the defeat of Auerstedt (1806) and died because he started making long journeys after being wounded at Großgörschen (1813). His top student Carl von Clausewitz was another example.
64	* Louis Nicolas Davout certainly looked the part, being bald and having to wear glasses because of his myopia. Still, he was one of Napoleon's toughest lieutenants, earning the sobriquet "the Iron Marshal".
65	* Advanced practitioners of Historical European Martial Arts may become this; since the martial arts in question are revivals of lost styles via study of the period fighting manuals, any practitioner who seeks proper understanding must read at least a few different manuals of one style for the sake of context and technique verification.
66	** Many of the founders were this as well in their time. Lippo Bartolomeo Dardi of the famous school of Bolognese fencing, for one, was a master swordsman at a particularly contentious time period in Italy, and also an accredited professor of astronomy and mathematics.
67	* Creator/JacquesCousteau developed his passion for undersea exploration and perfected modern scuba-diving apparatus as an officer in the French Navy during World War II...while also leading commando operations against Axis intelligence operatives and helping to bring the French fleet onto the Allied side. Also notable in that [[GuileHero his home was directly opposite that of Admiral Darlan, Prime Minister of the Vichy government]].
68	* Another entry from France: Creator/MarcelMarceau was a member of the [[LaResistance French Resistance]] who practiced mime as a means of keeping Jewish children quiet as he and his brother smuggled them into Switzerland. It's fair to say that there are a few people out there today who [[EveryoneHatesMimes don't hate mimes]] as a result.
69	* Cao Cao, immortalized in the ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''. He was, in reality, not just a warrior and a ruler, but also an accomplished poet. He also wrote some commentary on Sun Tzu's ''Literature/{{The Art of War\|SunTzu}}''. Some records depict him as taking time to read every day, even when on military campaign.
70	* Sun Tzu himself is one of the greatest Badass Bookworms in history. His writing reflects the basic idea that battles are won with the mind and not with brute strength, and he is said[[note]]There is some dispute as to Sun Tzu's historicity[[/note]] to have put these lessons to practical use as a successful military commander.
71	* Cory Booker. Stanford graduate, Rhodes Scholar who attended Oxford, Yale-trained lawyer, mayor of Newark, NJ, United States Senator from New Jersey... and [[http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/04/newark_mayor_cory_booker_taken.html guy who ran into a burning building to save people trapped inside]]. Though he wasn't a ''complete'' bookworm, as he also played [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball football]] at Stanford.
72	* Many Roman emperors were known for being both conquerors and philosophers, especially Marcus Aurelius and Julian the Apostate.
73	* John "Jack" R. Horner, the American Paleontologist, famous for his groundbreaking theories on dinosaur maternal care and his theories on ''Tyrannosaurs'' eating habits, was a [[SemperFi Force Recon Marine]] in [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]] for 14 months, starting in 1966.
74	* At 1.5 meters tall with a slender build, Philippine national hero Jose Rizal is this, TheNapoleon, and a PintsizedPowerhouse. He is a polymath, a gym buff, and a fencer. He is known for his novels ''Literature/NoliMeTangere'' and ''Literature/ElFilibusterismo'', numerous sculptures, and insects named after him, among many other things he has achieved in his short life.
75	* Given how many military people of all branches have master's degrees or higher, examples could go on all day. In fact, anyone in a military "technical" field, given how much material they must commit to memory. Especially pilots. They practically get a degree in aeronautical engineering before ''ever'' planting their butt in a seat. Even in general this holds true: considering how the military is much more technical, computerized, and robotic in many ways nowadays, you don't just need to be an ass-kicker anymore, you also need to be a techno whiz.
76	** US Navy and Air Force senior NCO's (E-7, E-8, E-9) are required to complete at least an Associate's degrees (and generally won't be promoted beyond E-7 without a Bachelor's or higher).
77	** Officers of all branches of the US armed forces are required to be college graduates, though you can also qualify for said promotion or officer's commission by getting a degree in General Studies, which is essentially getting a degree in "I don't know what I want to be when I grow up." (This includes pilots. Aeronautical degrees are NOT a prerequisite to getting your wings.)
78	** By the time an Intelligence Analyst enlisted in the US Army finishes his Advanced Individual Training, he's received the equivalent of a Bachelor's Degree in Military Science, as well as a second Bachelor's Degree worth of training in Military History, and a third one in Games Theory. And his rank, on average, will only be Private First Class. There is a reason only 15% of all trainees who enter the Intelligence Analyst training program make it to graduation.
79	* UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat is a preeminent example of the BadassBookworm. Most people know him as just the conqueror, but the kid was educated by Aristotle and managed to impress foreign dignitaries with his genius. He outdid his much more experienced father in generalship when he was just 18. He then proceeded to create one of the largest land empires in history. A personal favorite story: after his conquests in Persia, part of his spoils was a beautiful chest. He set it aside to carry his equally beautiful and painstakingly written copy of Homer's poetry, a gift from Aristotle.
80	* The Three (four) Musketeers. Yes, they were real people:
81	** Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, Comte d'Artagnan, spy, diplomat, fencer, and obviously musketeer.
82	** Armand, Seigneur de Sillègue, d'Athos, et d'Autevielle
83	** Henri, Seigneur d'Aramitz
84	** Isaac de Porthau, Musketeer, later Secretary of the Parliament of Béarn.
85	* Miyamoto Musashi, renowned samurai ronin, swordmaster, strategist, author of "The Book of Five Rings".
86	* The ideal of the samurai was this: A physically capable fighter, but also skilled in the sciences and humanities (such as they were in medieval Japan). Few lived up to the ideal, but it was still the ideal.
87	* Rugby Union players tended to be this. Because it was an amateur-only sport until 1995, causing the need to have another job on the side, and because the need to be physically robust typically prevented them from starting their top-level career until after 20 (contrary to European football players who start it before finishing high school), and because the British Gentleman tradition is still in play, many rugbymen are college-educated and work in intellectual fields after retirement. For instance, the Underwood brothers were both aircraft pilots and the Stade Français club of Paris had, at some point, one physician and two physiotherapists among its players. Even in the professional era, a decent number of top-flight rugby players have had qualifications in intellectual fields during their playing careers, such as Conrad Smith, Alun Wyn Jones (both lawyers), Felipe Contepomi, Jannie du Plessis, and Jamie Roberts (all doctors).
88	* A less famous example. [[http://gu.com/p/3m8tf/fb This doctor]] was attacked in the sea by a shark. After initially panicking, he got a knife out and started stabbing it repeatedly until it decided that being shanked wasn't worth the meal. He then swam back to shore with an injured leg, fixed up his injuries by himself, and went to the pub for a well-deserved beer. Only after the beer did he go to hospital, and he was back to work after a day or two of recovery.
89	** Amusingly, the pub almost kicked him out for bleeding on the floor.
90	* Hall of Fame NBA player Dikembe Mutombo. He initially came to Georgetown on a scholarship to study medicine and was only recruited to play basketball after arriving on campus (due to being 7'2"). He also speaks 9 languages fluently and is a well-known humanitarian.
91	* Famous French physicist [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Joliot-Curie Frédéric Joliot-Curie]] (son-in-law of the even more famous Pierre and Marie Curie and himself a Nobel prize laureate) was a member of the Résistance during the World War 2. In 1944, he invented a new type of Molotov cocktail that could destroy german tanks, which become the main weapon used by partisans in the August 1944 Paris uprising.
92	* UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt, whose badass deeds are already [[MemeticMutation the stuff of legend]], read a whole book every day of his Presidency, as many as three if he had some spare time. He also wrote a few, including at least one that became required reading at the United States Naval Academy, and negotiated a treaty to end the UsefulNotes/RussoJapaneseWar, earning himself a Nobel Peace Prize in the process.
93	* Creator/TravisSTaylor, ScienceFiction author with [[TryToFitThatOnABusinessCard two doctorates, three master's degrees, one bachelor's degree]], a pilot's license, and a black belt, races mountain bikes and [=SCUBA=] dives on his free time.
94	* Action star Creator/DolphLundgren has an M.Sc. in chemical engineering, can speak five languages, and reportedly has an IQ of 160.
95	* Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, was an accomplished poet and translator; it is said the first book printed in England was his translation of the French work ''The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers.'' He was also a Knight of the Garter, a talented commander, and was a Lancastrian who managed to survive [[CurbstompBattle Towton]].
96	* Peabody Award-winning news anchor Creator/AndersonCooper graduated from Yale with a degree in political science, interned with the ''UsefulNotes/{{CIA}}'', and is a bestselling author. He also got his start as a journalist by having a friend fake him a press pass and borrowing a home video camera, then ''sneaking into Myanmar'' to cover the ongoing civil unrest. He has since reported from every major war and disaster zone of the past two decades, including Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Iraq at the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the earthquake in Haiti, the tsunami aftermath of Sri Lanka, the earthquake in the Philippines, Egypt at the height of the Arab Spring, Libya, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, and live on-the-ground during the landfall and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He's reported with bombs going off behind him, got punched in the face (repeatedly) in Cairo, was nearly decapitated by a flying street sign during a hurricane, contracted malaria in Africa, and spends a terrifying amount of time wearing a bulletproof vest. IntrepidReporter, thy name is Anderson Cooper.
97	* Herpetologist Karl P. Schmidt, bitten by an African boomslang snake in the process of identifying it. Realizing that no antivenin for the boomslang's bite existed in North America, and thus how utterly buggered he was, he quietly misinformed his assistant that he believed the snake could not deliver a lethal dose of venom and went home at the end of his work day. The following day he got up, ate a large breakfast, went to work, and [[FaceDeathWithDignity died just after lunchtime]].
98	* Creator/HarukiMurakami, who is a novelist, a triathlete and marathon runner (which is the main subject of his memoir).
99	* Russian philosophers Eduard Limonov and Alexander Dugin. Dugin, looking like a cross between Merlin, Gandalf, and Rasputin, who is able to operate military weapons one of his most famous photos shows him using a rocket launcher. Limonov is another Russian philosopher who fought in the Balkan wars just for his personal fun.
100	* Creator/JRRTolkien, the author of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' series, participated in the Battle of the Somme (a very bloody and devastating battle) as a member of the British military.
101	* His friend Creator/CSLewis was also a veteran of World War I and was involved in counter-espionage work in World War II. He was also a big-name author and a great spiritual philosopher.
102	* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mattis James Mattis]], retired U.S. Marine Corps General and later U.S. Secretary of Defense, has been nicknamed "The Warrior Monk" because of his bachelor life and devotion to the study of war. He has extensively studied military history and world history, and his personal library contains over 7,000 books. [[http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/ltgen-james-mattis-reading-list He even issued required reading lists for the Marines under his command.]]
103	* Creator/GeorgeOrwell, author of ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' and ''Literature/AnimalFarm'', fought in the Spanish Civil War and was shot through the throat by a sniper. He was also a colonial police officer in Burma. He would have fought in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII but was rejected because of poor health.
104	* Chuck Doswell not only [[http://www.flame.org/~cdoswell/CV_data.html researches severe thunderstorms,]] he often actively travels ''toward'' them as part of his research.
105	* Professor Bernard Knox was one of the most decorated scholars of Greek literature. He was first inspired to study the classics while fighting alongside anti-fascist partisans in Italy. Prior to that, he fought alongside the Republican forces in the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar and served in the US Army alongside the French Resistance. [[LaResistance If you've noticed a pattern]], the FBI did as well, and Knox was frequently dogged by suspicion that he was a communist agent.
106	* Humanity itself is essentially this. Despite not possessing claws, razor-sharp fangs, brute strength, heightened senses, and bodies optimized for speed, we have thought of ways to supplement our strengths and shield our weaknesses using nothing more than opposable thumbs and larger brains. We have even studied the capabilities and weaknesses of creatures large enough to pose a threat to us and figured out ways to use the obtained information against them to the point of becoming [[HumansAreCthulhu inscrutable and dangerous beings]] to them. The fact that our minds are such that they can be focused on more than just survival and reproduction merely adds to our alienness.
107	* Creator/StephenHawking, possibly the best example of a GeniusCripple inspiring most ''fictional examples'', who became the most famous and respected scientist in the world even though he became a quadriplegic and lost the ability to even speak. Not to mention that he lived for ''more than 50 years'' with a condition that normally claims the lives of its sufferers within ''five''.
108	* Astronauts are some of the bravest, toughest, most brilliant people in the world. The amount of physical training that they have to go through in order to qualify going into space would make most professional soldiers vomit, and they have to study the hardest of hardcore subjects, like physics, astrodynamics, computer science, and medicine, [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist often becoming experts in multiple disciplines]]. Then, if that wasn't enough, they have massive enough leftover balls to strap themselves to a bomb and fly thousands of miles in a matter of seconds to go to a place more isolated than any land- or sea-mass on Earth where the smallest mistake could result in a horrible death and their bodies unrecoverable. And they do it because it is AWESOME.
109	** As amazing as astronauts are, the thousands of scientists and engineers who invent the technology necessary for space flight, and the ground crew who guide the astronauts safely to and from space are no less valuable. Most of them dedicate their entire lives living and breathing some of the most intellectually demanding jobs in the world, and just because they work from a cubicle it doesn't make them wimps. Take for example the Apollo 13 crew, who were faced with a hopeless situation, solved every insurmountable problem with nothing but their wits and tenacity, and brought the astronauts home safe.
110	* Chinese philosopher Mozi founded a school called Mohism that was based around pacifism (among other things), and the Mohists [[MartialPacifist strongly opposed the militaristic aggression of the Chinese states]]. His philosophy also stressed education, particularly in areas such as mathematics and engineering. And so his students became known as [[BarrierWarrior specialists in siege warfare and defensive engineering]], training the smaller and weaker states and helping them build fortifications to fight off attacks from larger powers.
111	* Archimedes was legendary for being a [[AbsentMindedProfessor geek]] about machinery even in his own time. And that mechanical geekery included a love for engines of war, which made him [[TheDreaded so feared by the Romans]] that they'd run away from the walls of Syracuse whenever they saw an odd piece of wood or length of rope on them, because it might be Archimedes about to test another weapon on them.
112	* Actually pretty common if you get to know university professors well enough.
113	* This is basically the reason for the Shaolin Monks learning Kung Fu. They figured out there's a correlation between a strong mind and a strong body, so, to supplement their Monastic Tradition and study, they use Kung Fu to maximize their physical prowess.
114	* Gichin Funakoshi was very well-read and almost as well known in his lifetime for his poetry as he was for becoming the father of modern karate.
115	* Genki Sudo is currently an incumbent member of Japan's house of councillors, prior to that he was an award winning author and a member of a successful techno band, even before that, however, Sudo was well known among the [[UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts mixed martial arts]] community as an insanely skilled fighter with a penchant for employing ConfusionFu tactics and high-end grappling.
116	* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Kiesenhofer Anna Kiesenhofer]] is a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. She also won the gold medal in the women's individual road race at the 2020 Summer Olympics, building up and maintaining such a large lead that several of her pursuers (including silver medalist Annemiek Van Vleuten) had no idea she was ahead of them.

Context BadassBookworm / RealLife