Hate to admit it.

But there are days when I actually _do_ feel nostalgic for the Army. Don't get me wrong, the job was frequently mind-numbing, if not soul-destroying, and I would never go back to it. But there was something reassuring about knowing that the guy/gal next to you, even if they absolutely hated your guts as a human being, would still watch your back when (insert derogatory nickname for whoever we're fighting at the moment) tried to stick a knife in it. Oh, sure, they'd hate you even more afterward, and they'd never ever let you live it down, but they would risk their life to protect yours, if that's what duty demanded.

Of course, duty might also demand letting you die. Very few enlisted grunts would willingly make _that_ call, though, which is why officers exist. That's also why there's a persistent, low-level, never-entirely-joking animosity for those officers: The knowledge that, no matter how great Lieutenant/Captain/Colonel Whatsisface might be as a person, for the sake of the mission, he could potentially decide not only to let you die, but that you had to let your buddies die instead. And for the sake of the mission, you'd have to say "Yes Sir", and soldier on.