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I proably need to listen to this song thirty or forty more times to really start to get some ideas percolating on it but...
...for starters, I believe the extended military motif of the song is an extended metaphor rather than an explicit callout. The lyrics strike me as far too elliptical to support such a direct connection to the way an army does business. I look at those lyrics and see references to "They", a group with "so many heads[...and] hands"...a legion that seeks to entrap and query "Are you one of us"...I think it's society as a whole. A mainstream of conformists, who in their narrow vision and lockstep approximate an army on the march, and once you choose the low road and settle for the minimum, you're subsumed into the beast.
I see it as a lament for those who have made the decision to grow up, assimilate into society and take the uniform (the suit and tie) of the army of Responsibility. You lose something vital in this transition, and you lose it before you even realize it's lost, and you can't go back and find it again. You are left dead inside, having settled for the spouse and the mortgage and the college fund.
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