The Origin of Ox

LT Ox was not a good officer. He was a pretty pitiful platoon leader. He was a nice person and generally intelligent, but his constant assessment of tasks as useful or useless generally led him to a state of apathetic bliss in which nothing was accomplished and nothing ever changed. He believed in the phrase "Anything worth doing is worth doing well," but there were very few things he found worth doing. In fact, nearly every task assigned to LT Ox was was something he considered not worth doing, but avoiding and delaying the task was. Hence, he threw himself whole-heartedly into finding the best possible way to hide from the locals at the gate, diligently studied which tasks he could ignore without being disciplined for doing so, and expertly created massive distractions designed to redirect his subordinates' and superiours' collective attentions. His efforts constructed an environment in which for a significant portion of the deployment, CPT Hugnis suffered under the delusion that LT Ox was one of the hardest working and least complaining officers he had ever met. The only people Ox couldn't fool were his fellow lieutenants, who never said anything about his fantasy world of misdirection out of sheer amazement that he could keep the facade up for so long.
LT Ox was not always like this. In high school, he showed drive and potential. He got the best grades, won every class office he ran for, and lettered in football and basketball. He went to West Point with the plan to become the next Patton, and for almost half a semester he stayed on that track. It was rumored that at some point, jealous classmates slipped him copies of the movies Office Space and Van Wilder in an attempt to get him to tone down his efforts. Watching the former immediately subdued every bit of drive the young cadet ever had, leaving him wondering how glorious doing nothing could be. The latter left him spellbound, opening his eyes towards the pursuit of exceptional mediocrity. Ox was NEVER the regular guy. He was never the guy would didn't accomplish anything of note. He was the speaker when a speaker was needed. He was a leader when a leader was needed. He was the best at whatever he tried, and suddenly he realized that the one thing he had never tried was to be blissfully unsuccessful.
As it turned out, this pursuit turned out to be Cadet Ox's true calling. Be it grades, physical fitness, or general military bearing and appearance, Cadet Ox was the perfect example of adequacy. He may have been the most unaccomplished cadet ever to graduate from West Point, which was a true mark of pride for Ox. In an environment where the go-getter, push to succeed, harder right over easier wrong, duty-honor-country attitude made young men and women into leaders of character, Ox was a dull landmark of granite next to the shining crystal beacons.