Pursuant to the powers conferred by section 8 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States, it lies within the discretion of the Congress to establish qualifications for and conditions of service in the Armed Forces. The primary purpose of the Armed Forces is to prepare for and to prevail in combat should the need arise. The conduct of military operations requires members of the Armed Forces to make extraordinary sacrifices, including the ultimate sacrifice, in order to provide for the common defense. Success in combat requires military units that are characterized by high morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion. One of the most critical elements in combat capability is unit cohesion, that is, the bonds of trust among individual service members that make the combat effectiveness of a military unit greater than the sum of the combat effectiveness for the individual unit members.
Military life is fundamentally different from civilian life in that- a.
The military society is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs, and traditions, including numerous restrictions on personal behavior, that would not be acceptable in civilian society. The standards of conduct for members of the Armed Forces regulate a member's life 24 hours each day beginning at the moment the member enters the military status and not ending until the person is discharged or otherwise separated from the Armed Forces. Those standards of conduct, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice, apply to a member of the Armed Forces at all times that the member has a military status, whether the member is on base or off base, and whether the member is on duty or off duty. The pervasive application of the standards of conduct is necessary because members of the Armed Forces must be ready at all times for worldwide deployment to a combat environment. The worldwide deployment of United States military forces, the international responsibilities of the United States, and the potential for involvement of the Armed Forces in actual combat routinely make it necessary for members of the Armed Forces involuntarily to accept living conditions and working conditions that are often spartan, primitive, and characterized by forced intimacy with little or no privacy.