Quote from: philter3 on April 21, 2012, 05:47 amTake it from someone who knows a little about the armed "service".. what you are seeing in terms of discipline and subtlety of mind is NOT indicative, typical or characteristic of anyone who learned to think in uniform. By far the most disciplined people, the deadliest scariest people (in a good way) and the most technologically savvy people I've ever met had no significant military/gov background.I kinda agree and disagree. It depends on who we are talking about. It's like the difference between a police officer and a FBI agent, or a normal university student and a geeky university student.The average military solider isn't particularly disciplined anymore than the typical person in the street. True. They are regular people. Nothing wrong with that either. But grunts aren't supposed to think, they are supposed to obey to the exclusivity of anything else. If you ever meet a Navy SEAL or a SAS solider i.e. what the British call Commandos, then you're up against a rarer animal.Those guys are highly intelligent, highly disciplined and extremely motivated. However, what I called 'highly disciplined' isn't what most people might think of as being disciplined. Commandos in fact, are notorious for being independent minded and next to impossible to control via regular army disciplinary techniques. Being an independent thinker == getting shit done = being intelligent. The Army, despite it's lampooning from the left such as H.G. Wells, who said the army is chock full of the most stupid people on the planet (this is the left who also ironically support a larger army in a different context), was smart enough to recognize that chaotic irregular thinking might be more effective than well ordered activities dependent on hierarchy.tldr; it depends!Off topic thought: Commonly I hear it is said commandos show psychopathic tendencies. That is to say: psychologists think these kinds of people don't use society as a frame of reference. They also say this about successful business people. That is because psychologists are probably all closet Marxists, which is a different discussion! (see the movie 'The Corporation' to get a sense of what I mean). Doubtless in the future, not being on Facebook for an hour a day will be seen as evidence of some pathy to be remedied by many expensive hours of counseling and box ticking (sic) :D