Cryptonomicon

Huge novel about code breaking in World War II.  It offers a fictional exchange with Ronald Reagan and a marine:

Ronald Reagan has a stack of three by five cards in his lap. He skids up a new one: "What advice do you, as the youngest American fighting man ever to win both the Navy Cross and the Silver Star, have for any young Marines on their way to Guadalcanal?" Shaftoe doesn't have to think very long... "Just kill the one with the sword first." "Ah...Smarrrt—you target them because they're the officers, right?" "No, fuckhead!" Shaftoe yells. "You kill 'em because they've got fucking swords! You ever had anyone running at you waving a fucking sword?"

And then this vaguely familiar passage:

Three years later, he left the Astronomy Department without a degree, and with nothing to show for his labors except six hundred dollars in his bank account and a staggeringly comprehensive knowledge of UNIX.

If you have any interest in code breaking, virtual currency to military history this novel goes from very good to great.