Everybody was tired almost all the time, yet so effective had this navy become that “there weren’t many fuck-ups,” in the words of a young reservist. “It was an exhausting life that discouraged reflection, introspection, or anything more intellectual than reading.” A destroyer officer observed pityingly that two of his comrades, junior-grade lieutenants, were geriatrics of twenty-seven, “too old for the duty they had…The hours were too long and the physical demands too great. That’s when I learned that war is for kids.”
