What is the age of the ball turret gunner and what seems to be Jarrell's point about war?Referring to the poem "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"

Randall Jarrell wrote his poem, "The Death of the Ball
Turret Gunner" in 1945, having recently returned himself from serving in the Army Air
Force during World War II.  The poem is only five lines long, so there aren't a lot of
specifics, including any specific reference to the age of the gunner
himself.

We do get the sense that he is young, as were most
of the people who served in that war, as evidenced by Jarrell's
line:

readability="5">

From my mother's sleep I fell into the
State

The
suggestion is one of instant transition from youth, or even from infancy (protected by
the mother) to being in the service of the State--the government--or that the State had
replaced the mother for the gunner.

The telling line for me
is when he states what happened to the gunner who was
killed:

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When I died they washed me out of the
turret with a
hose.

The
inhumanity of the line, the reduction of human life to being disposed of by a mere steam
hose, is Jarrell's commentary on war, in my opinion.