Representing one's country

Today, I met three different guys from various branches of the US Military. They were recruiting officers, in full uniform, who happened to be positioned in the mall. Now before I start relating the story, there were a few things I learned about uniforms from school in Trinidad and one thing that our teachers always preached to us was, "You represent the institution, not yourself, when you wear the uniform." This applies for any job, school, government etc.
Event1:
These guys come up to us...I am purposely saying guys because I do not feel as if they deserve my respect to call them by their ranks...so they come up to us and obviously they know my coworker. I step away and after a while they introduce themselves to me and they ask why I distanced myself from them. They want to know my name. My coworker tells them but she tells them the shortened version. One of them asks if I am Latin. I said no. They ask where I am from and I tell them and I go back to where I was standing at first. One of the guys walks over and begins a conversation with me.
Conversation:
Guy: "I used to work with a Trinidadian."
me: "oh really?" I am not impressed...It came out more sarcastic than questioning. There are a lot of Trinis in S.Fl.
Guy: "yeah, he was always down low." the guy is motioning with his hands and at the same time he sees the inquisitive look on my face. "yeah, he was always smoking something, and I don't mean cigarettes. He (the trini) said that everyone in Trinidad smokes marijuana." Now, I am not impressed at all. In fact, I am little ticked because I can see that he is implying that if Trini A smokes ganja, then Trini B must smoke ganja as well.
Me: "Well he was speaking for himself only."
Guy: "Yeah?"
Me: "Yes. Not everyone in Trinidad smokes weed. Maybe some people do but we really shouldn't collectively judge people like that."
Guy: "That's true. It's like me, I'm Puerto Rican and people are surprised when I tell them that I don't drink."
Me: "My point exactly!" I turn back to my work and Guy walks back over to my coworker and a little while after he and his recruiting buddy leaves.
Sometime later, Recruiting buddy (RB) comes back minus Guy.
RB is speaking with coworker about some occurrence in the mall the day before where a discharged soldier was telling him about soliciting at his booth. Apparently you are not supposed to solicit at other people's businesses. Lo and behold, RB starts cussing about the whole thing and he is loud enough for people passing by to overhear. Okay, breaking this down, I may be old school but there are some things I do not like. One of them is you do not start using your green verbs and red adjectives in front of someone you just met......and worse yet, when you are supposed to be representing your country's military. RB's behavior made me think twice about how "honorable" it was to be a member of the US Armed Forces. One of the things that they stress is how disciplined you are when you leave the military. I did not see discipline today. On top of all that.....other event. This one, I am willing to place bets on....
Event 2.
RB starts speaking with J- over at the other store from us. He is trying to find out if J- knows anything about the discharged guy and the soliciting story. J- knows a little of it but in a nice way, J- says, "If I were you, I would just leave it alone." RB is gearing up for a fight, it seems, with the discharged guy and he is trying to find out when the guy is there so he can come back in his fatigues (when he is not in uniform) to punch the guy. Hence, J-'s advice. RB says something and J- tells him that it is not becoming of someone in uniform. Now he turns to J-. The funny thing is J- is going along with it and he is getting RB angrier. Meanwhile, like a typical Trini, I was thinking about which one I should place my bets on...in case if the whole matter resorted to blows...and let me tell you, the popcorn stand was right around the corner!
On a serious note, I knew what J- was doing though. See, RB is a young hothead who has probably risen in rank faster than he could absorb his responsibilities. He has a uniform on and he thinks that he can get away with treating ordinary people as if he is superior to them. The conversation between J- and the Recruiting Buddy showed that a little power/elevation in rank was enough to inflate RB's ego to a point where he completely forgot basic civilities and that he was actually speaking for his country while wearing that uniform. To a person like me, an onlooker, who has serious doubts about what the entire US military is doing right now, I saw that RB was old enough to know that when he dons an American uniform, he is representing America and he did not leave me with a very good impression of the US military. On a more individual note, RB turned me off at "hello" but even worse, he was cursing to impress my younger coworker and in the process of his whole visit, he forgot what it was like to even be civil far less for being disciplined.