Sometimes a line, or a paragraph, in a book will leap out at you. It was innocuous enough when the author wrote it, but now it's dated the book for good. I was leafing through Accounting For Murder, by Emma Lathen (1961), and came across this paragraph.
Stanley was delighted. He would no more have questioned the authority of Clarence Fortinbras to press him into service than he would have questioned the summons of his local draft board.
Within five years, that line was an anachronism.
That reminds me of an episode of Dobie Gillis from about that era. Dobie and Meynard have both enlisted and their school buddies congratulate them.
Serge, there are still places where going into the service is seen as a rite of passage. Down here in the South, for example.