“That’s why the Navy recruited older men for the SeaBees in WWII. Lots of skilled tradesmen, who were out of the age brackets for the draft.”
That’s a fact. The SeaBees performed some construction miracles.
The SeaBees were started after experiences on Wake Island, where civilian contractors had been brought in to build fortifications and other infrastructure on the island. There were labor disputes that hampered construction, and when the Japanese invaded, they had a bunch of civilians on the island who had no military training.
and in many cases they were UNDER FIRE while doing it !!