Pucky, You said yourself you did some stupid things while you were in the military.
We ALL do stupid things in the military. Sometimes they are things we're ordered to do, sometimes they are things we do to ourselves, and sometimes they're things done in reaction to things others do to us.

Where I think you're missing the point is that what Puck and I will both refer to as stupid things aren't stupid. It's military humor.

There are four parts to a message:

The sender

The recipient

The message

The medium

If the sender and recipient don't speak the same language, the message is garbled.

If the medium restricts portions of the message (as text on a message board certainly does) content is lost.

Servicemembers, former and present, speak the same lingo, and have similar experiences. There's a disconnect in the language that just can't be overcome at times if you haven't been there.