I signed up for 4 years for the US Army in order to finish college. Ended up doing 5 years for being stop lossed due to a deployment that got extended. When I joined I had 72 hours college under my belt, went in as a PFC. The reality of service is it is both the good as portrayed here and the shit experiences I know we have all had in the service. Would I change anything, no. Was it all cake, hell no. But I wouldn't change anything. The single best thing about service, that I think most people actually need in life, is the forced mega dose of reality, and how the military deals with it, especially when as a person you've refused to, and made it the militaries problem. Everything about my time in has helped me in my civilian life, except how to explain to people that they are denying reality.
I don't doubt your experiences, more generally the military is quite unreal - a world with very different cultures, rules, clothes, jobs; a world where you can exist without dealing with outsiders very often. There's almost nothing else that is quite so much a parallel reality. A lot of people leaving the military have trouble adjusting to real life.
The Military forces you to strip yourself of your preconceptions. To see things as they are. No lying to yourself, no lying to others, that is a great way to get called out, its expected and encouraged, but you better be right. The concept of this if foreign to civilians. Most civilians would be down right offended at the idea if questioning someone's beliefs, its expected in the military. INTJ's that I have met seem to do this naturally as Civilians but they are the exception. Academic debate, papers, also does this but the acts are again frowned on outside of that environment. After years of this Military members have a core belief system that has been striped and rebuilt, with all the fluffy civy nonsense discarded. All this happens during those in-between times in the Military, the times we spent waiting for the next event, training, location to be at, bullshitting to each other. Someone inevitably say's something so naïve or untrue, they get called out on it. This happens enough and you start examining yourself. You want to fit in, belong, your subconscious starts to reorient its self and realign your thinking.
I've recently came across what appears to be a pretty sober take on what is being a soldier about from Ukrainian soldier[0]. It's likely much different if one serves during peace time or away from the front lines.
