I'm at a little loss in terms of my Leave It To Beaver expertise, since I never watched an episode of the show - so the cast in the pilot could have been Martians or they could have been the regular cast for all I know. ↗
World War II had been such a tremendous success story for this country that the political and military leadership began to assume that they would prevail simply because of who they were. We were like the British at the turn of the 19th century. ↗
Ah, mastery... what a profoundly satisfying feeling when one finally gets on top of a new set of skills... and then sees the light under the new door those skills can open, even as another door is closing. ↗