“While going through training in the army, I was very puzzled about the number of things which we had to do… why learn to lace our shoes a particular way, walk back and forth through puddles, salute commissioned officers… Only much later did I realize that, in audition to combat training, basic training was a stage setting device, especially for the establishment of legitimate position power. Those in command were not ready to put their trust in informational power: Particularly in combat conditions, officers would not be able to give us reasons. Coercive power, under limited surveillance, would also not be sufficient. We must learn, as Tennyson said of the Light Brigade, that when ordered to do something, "ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die."”

So it was important that we were ordered to do meaningless things, and learn to obey legitimate authority without question, while coercive power was still hovering in the background.
Source: "Influence, Power, Religion, and the Mechanisms of Social Control," 1999, p. 176, as cited in: Rick Houser et al. Gaining Power and Control Through Diversity and Group Affiliation, 2004, p. 12