Please take this as a quote and as tongue-in-cheek, but during my (very limited, I know that I'm not representative) military services the 'US grunt' was one of the things our superiors made most fun of.
'Follow orders blindly' (which is more or less the thing we're arguing about) was actively discouraged from the leadership.
Is this good? How can I tell.. But since I started out biased (i.e. with a working brain) I did enjoy that part of my service.
I didn't explain myself well. My goal wasn't to suggest that the Israeli army teaches soldiers to blindly follow orders - by all accounts the opposite is true. Rather, I was addressing the grandparent post's derisive comment about teaching soldiers to salute, respect authority, and generally behave in a disciplined manner.
'Follow orders blindly' (which is more or less the thing we're arguing about) was actively discouraged from the leadership.
Is this good? How can I tell.. But since I started out biased (i.e. with a working brain) I did enjoy that part of my service.