At the risk of keeping off-topic here, I'm reminded of a boot camp painfest that I went through. Our company commander was a short 1st Class petty officer, maybe 5'5" or thereabouts, and all of it pure mean. I'm 6'1", and since I was unfortunate enough to be assigned as the recruit petty officer in charge of my company, and therefore responsible for my fellow recruits' screw-ups, I spent a lot of time standing before "the man". The very first time I "stood tall" before the company commander, he informed me that he never talked to anyone who looked down him, and ordered me to stand at eyeball to eyeball level. I didn't know what the heck he was talking about, but he just said, "Figure it out, boot." I finally figured out that I was supposed to lose six inches in height by standing at attention with my knees flexed. I had to stand and hold that position everytime he chewed me out. You can't imagine the pain of standing like that for what seemed like hours at a time. My poor old knees have never been the same since. Sounds like torture, but it did motivate me to motivate my fellow recruits to get with the program, and we ended up as the Honor Company of our training cycle.