[lewislynn]

They were just boys, mostly under 20 barely out of high school when they went in but they were men when they came home.

[Savage Beast]

It's true that most of the men who fought in World War II were boys.

I didn't mean that. I meant in the movies. Dana Andrews was well into his 20s and maybe his 30s when he made State Fair, but he was referred to as a "boy". They did that routinely in the mid-20th-century. In popular songs too.