Did you think your service time was an overall benefit to you or not?    You've shared a lot of bitterness toward the service process, a common historical theme of enlisted men complaining about leadership.

Authoritarian government works pretty smoothly and works great for task oriented processes that have to work fast and decisively, a good description of the needs of the military.    It helps to explain why they are also expected to follow the guidelines of civilian leadership.

Doing something as team is still worthless if you are doing the wrong thing.  That's the failure of most authoritarian regimes, they are vulnerable to very narrow objectives of corrupt leadership, which leads to extreme repression of public opinion outside the Authorities approval.