Comment by skissane

The way it was explained to me was different... yes, all able-bodied males do national service. But there's a different phenomenon in which someone serves some years active duty (so this is not their mandatory national service, this is voluntary active duty service), in some relatively prestigious position, and then jumps ship to the corporate world, and they get hired as an executive by their ex-comrades/ex-superiors... so there ends up being a pipeline from more senior volunteer active duty military ranks into corporate executive ranks (especially at large and prestigious firms), and of course that produces a certain culture, which then tends to flow downhill