Treat every weapon as if it were loaded

I've been hesitant to nitpick Army Wives because I don't know much about the Army, specifically, how it differs from the Navy in the small details, where the nits live. As I begin to watch Season 3 on DVD, I need to remind myself again that in the Army, you can salute indoors under certain circumstances. But I'm not sure Colonel Burton saying goodbye to General Holden before he went to command NATO in Brussels counts as one of those circumstances.

There might be a bigger nit in Trevor's storyline in which a soldier under his charge accidentally fires his rifle to the deck after returning from a training exercise. After finding out who the soldier is, Colonel Connors asks who the team leader is, and throws the book at him in NJP (non-judicial punishment) for failing to make sure his soldiers' rifles were cleared at the end of the exercise. Trevor explains to his wife Roxy that the Army is strict, even about negligent discharges in which no one gets hurt. However, it seems to me as if the soldier whose "gun" went off actually gets off scot-free.

I wasn't an Infantryman in the Marines (couldn't have been even if I had wanted to), but even I got it drilled into my head to "treat every weapon as if it were loaded." So even if I was completely certain my rifle was cleared, I would still have put the 'dial' in the "safe" position and I still WOULD HAVE KEPT MY FINGER OFF THE @#$%ING TRIGGER! This is not to say that no Marine has ever accidentally shot his rifle. But something tells me that the Marine whose rifle went off would bear the brunt of the punishment.

Of course Army Infantry is different from Marine combat support, but one would think they too would be trained to treat every weapon as if it were loaded. I suppose such an incident is the only reason the writers could think of for getting Trevor in trouble and making Burton jump to the conclusion that Connors was coming down hard on LeBlanc to indirectly get back at her.