Based on the long-term field studies and stationary research of sketchbooks and notepads of demobilized soldiers, notebooks of soldiers (mariners), internet forums, personal memories of service and conversations with informants who had completed their military service, the author comes to the conclusion that certain phenomena, which are various in kind and quality (non-manual hierarchy of conscription soldiers and rites of passage, text materials and extravagant changes in full dress uniform, and, finally, deviant behavior of certain groups of military men) have common or similar causes.