Little things

I had a realization a while back, that explain a couple things about military culture to me. Mostly, in this case, the constant emphasis on little bullshit like shining shoes and straightening uniforms and all that stuff. I realized it because I've had to ride herd on a bunch of untrained people at work, and there's lots of little things that need to get done there, too. Things I don't actually care about all that much, and aren't that important, really, but do need to get done. And then there's things that really need to get done. And I have to be picky about the little unimportant things, because if I don't, they don't know which are important or unimportant yet, that takes experience, so if I'm not, they don't do the important ones, either. So the military's picky about the little unimportant bullshit so you don't forget the important little things when it matters.

Well, that and it's a method for them to enforce their power over you and make you trained to respond to the orders of officers, no matter how retarded they are, but that's not the only reason.