Steve,
You need to explain that one for us non-floating types.
You don’t need to be a floater to understand it… 
Never been in the military, but I worked for an outfit like that for 6 years.
huh?
Standards are like morals or faith. You can’t buy them and they can’t be forced on anyone. Money grubbers, in and out of uniform, will never achieve them as they work to climb the ladder of what they think success is.
My first job after junior college: The company divided employees into Professional and Non Professional.
They encouraged education, and if you got more schooling or learned new skills, promotions were forthcoming.
HOWEVER
Once employed as a non-professional employee, you could NEVER work for the fairly large company as a professional employee. I was hired at age 20 as a “T3,” the highest non-professional position. A T can never move to an M or and E.