I too was infantry. And muscle memory doesn’t necessarily mean always being engaged to the process, it means being able to return to the necessary posture when needed.
It wasn’t uncommon for us to rest our hands on our rifles too when we didn’t need to be actively engaged in the current situation in any hostile fashion.
Now if we could cleanse the junk and joke guides as well somehow…
Pirates kind of had a workers compensation program as I’ve been told.
Loss of certain body parts was payable with the amount varying by which part was affected.
These guys aren’t in some kind of parade or ceremonial display, nor do they appear to be at a guard post.
They’re just soldiers standing by. In that situation there’s no need for a uniform display to impress anyone. Keeping soldiers at drill precision 100% all thetime is a good way to fatigue soldiers who don’t need to be perfect quickly.
Besides which, all of them have a hand near their trigger guards and most have hands resting on the barrel of their weapons so are reasonably prepared if someone does try something.
Your number 2 is based around cultural, not species differences. Two humans raised in two different cultures could end up very different.
There could be two tribes of goblins. One that began eating people out of desperation and now just do it because it’s tradition. The other could have grown up in close relationships with their nongoblin neighbors and are seen as a valuable part of their region.
So untying evilness to their race isn’t being race blind or pretending people down have struggles - it’s removing the shoehorning that occurred.
The navy manual for troubleshooting equipment in the field includes “lift 3-6 inches and drop”
I use to spend so much time on there as a kid. I had a flashback as soon as I saw that avatar.
Systemic racism in the US ment an inproportionate number of drafted service personnel were black as white draftees were able to get college deferments in higher numbers.
This boiled back down to the poorer economic situation of black peoples in the Civil rights era fighting for basic equality.
The draft also caused friction that increased fraggings as this racist treatment by educated white officers or NCOs were dealt with locally. Fragging was furthered by a disconnect between draftees who wanted to just survive and glory hounds who saw military service and War as some great adventure.