The author is in the military - I've read a fair few things by current and former service members and two of the most common themes are:

- the disregard for health and wellbeing of each soldier

- being required to do nonsensical things that are counterproductive and likely compromise medium-to-long term goals of the outfit you're attached to

So I agree with what you said - there is very likely a way to schedule these shifts so that these problems do not occur. The Army has little interest in this though, their requirement is that the shifts need to be covered and they currently are so there is no problem.

edit: updated comment to be country agnostic