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Clunky and disorganized "corrections" of a largely yes-but manner:
The military is an absurd pain in the ass on good days and an anti-human meatgrinder on bad ones. Some combination of toughness, gallows humor, the ability to endure complete boredom, and even masochism are necessary to get by.
Bootcamp doesn't serve to destroy one's identity and replace it with another. It requires far more than three months of marching drills and plinking on the range to achieve that kind of brainwashing. Bootcamp serves to reject the defective and the weak so that the government doesn't waste time and money training useless motherfuckers who will only jeopardize their units and their missions later. And the culture of martial discipline exists so that when the shit goes down — which it will because the military is in the business of killing people and destroying infrastructure — that shit goes down when and where it's supposed to so that mission objectives are met without stupid quibbling and fucking around.
Although the military's chain of command does exert its authority downward from the top, every person in a position of power along the way is still someone else's subordinate, and even the power of the president is kept in check by the legislature and the court. It's entirely possible for the lowliest recruit to refuse unlawful orders, to give feedback to higher-ups, and to air grievances with one's supervisors.
The majority of people join the military because their hometowns are boring to them, their friends are all moving away, and they're interested in education benefits. The steady paycheck and travel aren't too bad either, plus whatever training one receives in the course of being prepared for service in the field.
Although there are power-hungry assholes in every command who treat their subordinates like slaves, those individuals are generally disrespected, disliked, and shunned. For instance, the chief I worked for near the tail end of my six year enlistment was one of these ridiculous douchebags and he took his meals alone in the corner of the chief's mess because all the other khaki NCOs detested his ass. His cack-handedly demeaning and draconian mismanagement reached such a point that one of the silly bitches in our division actually tried to stab the guy in the throat with with a pair of scissors, and another one tried to off himself with a fistful of sleeping pills.
When my unit had a commanding officer who respected the personnel and treated them like human adults, that attitude trickled down among the other officers, and then we'd have productive and upbeat individuals who took pride in their work, especially because they were being recognized for their efforts and dedication to excellence. However, when a new CO was one who held his subordinates in disdain or saw them as something other than human, this also was transferred to his immediate underlings and down to the lowest ranks, resulting in pissed off and overworked individuals who spent all their time awake pissing and moaning.
What you (Gilly) have related all sounds accurate, but it's also made of the same complaints that are issued every day in the military by those who feel overworked and underappreciated, and who are probably better off in another career that doesn't require blindness, stupidity, and perhaps masochism to endure with a smile. Do the problems carped about actually exist? Yes, but the clusterfuckery borne of ignorant bureaucrats (i.e. officers) tampering with the works of a giant machine is the primary issue inside the military, not so much sociopaths and megalomaniacs drawn to subjugate and afflict others.
DJA can barely claim to have been in the military because he flunked out of the dress-up of training without even beginning his active duty commitment. This occurred because he is a wounded simp whose brain is boobytrapped with multiple cognitive distortions, leaving him paranoiacally vigilant against anyone he even suspects might do him harm, a condition that existed prior to anything he claims "the military" did to him. DJA is daddy's homemade little enneagram six. Start with the roots of that complex and the remainder will become clear. There's your psychological answer.
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