McCain requested a combat assignment, and was assigned to the aircraft carrier flying A-4 Skyhawks. His combat duty began when he was 30 years old in mid-1967, when "Forrestal" was assigned to a bombing campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder, during the Vietnam War. Stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, McCain and his fellow pilots became frustrated by micromanagement from Washington, and he later wrote, "In all candor, we thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots who didn't have the least notion of what it took to win the war."