What is the behaviour/attitude of the boys before war?

Before the war, the boys were boys. They were young men, going to school, studying, playing pranks and making fun of their teachers. They listened, ignored, respected, and trusted..... and then they were sent to war.

For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress--to the future. We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but in our hearts we trusted them. The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognise that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs.