I've been involved in the military for a while, and I find it such a good example of a micro society, a society designed to behave how you want them to with minimal external effort. It's all quite magical in a slightly worrying way. People enter the system as seaman/soldier/airman or as an officer, are trained by more experienced members, and (if they pass) they come out as reformed people ready for the actual job they signed up for, where they if they can work within the system, will get promoted and will help mould the lower ranks and might even train new entries. Thus a system which has a lot of cultural inertia is created. (Is this a good thing? Not part of this discussion. Will there be another one? Who knows?!)
It's especially interesting on ships (where I have personal experience) 'cos it's a micro society within a micro society and for the most part people just drop in and get on. There's generally a few, less than 5%, who don't and are generally removed, but people by the time they get through all their training they get the society, and within a few months a pollywog is ready to be a shellback...
The true power of this is the government doesn't need to know much about this, it just needs to respect that the system is a closed loop and will remain stable and for the most part, will ignore society, and no major change will happen. I personally left the Navy and came back 20 years later. The Navy says it has changed. Has it? Slightly maybe, but I do think at it's core it is still the same. Some references have faded away, such as nicknames for jobs, and some new ones have replaced them, and some of the talk is a bit different, but regardless of what a lot of ex-Navy people like to think, modern Navy types are much the same. The world has changed a lot and the people have changed a bit to reflect that.
This probably sounds a bit creepy, but as I said at the start, it's a micro society. The world works the same way on vaster, less restricted way and thus change is faster and can be influenced by anyone, regardless of being accepted by the society, as you don't need to pass a joining school and no promotion is required. School is a major part of this moulding to the accepted norms and as a result different countries "produce" different people. It's a feature IMHO. But you notice these things. People for other countries (no names!) care more about some things than others. Such as having a respected name or a respected job. These things become baked into peoples psyche....
Hmm. Long rant. More another time.
