There are many different schools of thought within military academic on what it takes to prepare for battle. The current implementation is one that leadership currently thinks is best, although I bet we agree that the military suffers from a lot of historical baggage that would not be included if we were engineering an entirely new system from scratch, optimized for the current world.
Regardless, my comment wasn't intended to be judgemental, I apologize if it came off that way. I just wanted to point out the similarities between effective cult leadership and military indoctrination, but should have been more clear that I was speaking more academically.