Here's one more experience from Finnish army training. I "served my time" back in '91-'92.
Training was required by law, but there was a lot of inactivity. It could get boring as hell. One time we were transported into a forest in the middle of nowhere and told to watch for aircraft 24 hours a day. We had a tent and a radio for reports every other hour. Positioned on a hill rising just above the treetops, we had a rotating shift of one man watching the sky (cloud cover was low, we didn't see any aircraft in five days!) and another man watching what was practically the only route leading to our camp.
After three days the men really needed some activity. So we built a snowman in our guard post. Complete with helmet and plenty of other gear. We went back in our tent and considered adding a note saying "Stop or i'll shoot!" in the snowman's hand. Of course right then our platoon leader decided to stop by unannounced. He walked right into our camp without anyone noticing.
I got my fair share of the heat, since i was one of the two corporals present. After a lot of yelling, the only punishment was an order to move our tent 20 meters north. With all the snow that took a while though. After the officer had left, we made up a firing squad and executed the snowman for sleeping on guard duty. Of course, we only had soft tipped training ammo. But when we removed the required gas brakes from the assault rifles, we managed to knock the snowmans head off
