Warren was older, heavier in the face, more confident, more than ever on top of the world and ahead of his brother: so Byron felt. Those new gold wings on his white dress uniform seemed to Byron to spread a foot. About flying Warren was relaxed, humorous, and hard. He had mastered the machines and the lingo, and the jokes about his mishaps didn’t obscure the leap upward. He still spoke the words “naval aviator” with pride and awe. To Byron, his own close calls under fire had been stumblebum episodes, in no way comparable to Warren’s disciplined rise to fighter pilot.
