Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes

Oh come off it, we're not "dissing" the military, we're simply stating fact. I don't know about you, but I've been in the military and in the civilian world. We don't get together in my current non-military job with everyone from work in a work-sanctioned event multiple times per year to get stone-drunk, with kegs, beer-bongs, and all sorts of other bing-drinking contraptions. We also don't get together with the lower workers and go out for bing-drinking parties and campfires. I don't head to a bar that's 500' from my barracks and find a LTC stone drunk buying drinks. Although these things do happen in the civilian world (duh), many of these are, or at least were, expected and tolerated by the command. In the civilian world, these are generally seen as unprofessional and while they may fly at some low-end manual labor or menial job, it's not the mark of professionals and anyone who should be flying an airline. I could go into greater detail about other alcohol situations and events that were tolerated, but you've got to be kidding claiming the military and alcohol haven't been intertwined in the past.

Maybe you were completely sheltered in the military, IDK, but I was there, I know what I saw and experienced. It "seemed normal" at the time to me, but looking back on it more than 10 years later, I know better. Don't get me wrong, it's not that people didn't get in trouble for showing up drunk or for DUIs, it's that it was expected by the command and IMO they were the inevitable outcome of policies and attitudes that were passed down to the soldiers.

Those attitudes often stay with the individuals in my experience.