Could someone point me towards (a) site(s) that have detailed info on the police force and the military please?
contemporary?... or some other time frame? your best way to find such sites is by googling... much faster than asking here...
I would agree google the force you want to read about. Specifically. Each police force is a little different, and different military's are really different. Even narrowing it down, the US Air Force is different from the US Army, and so on. L.A. police are different from NY cops, large town police are different from small town cops. Really need to get pretty specific if you want to be specific, but if just looking for a generic police or military force then look for the more general topic. Common points: uniformity: no one stands out in dress or appearance then any other. discipline: low ranking must give high ranking the respect due their rank, but rank does not mean total blind following. If the superior breaks the law,comonly the sub is obligated to report it. This is might not be the case prior to Vietnam for the US. That was when it was ruled lower ranking can not be ordered to commit war crimes, or actually, that being ordered to commit warcrimes was no excuse to commit them. So basically, you have to look more specifically on the area/time period you need.
Read The Face of Battle and A History of Warfare, both by John Keegan. Good introduction to the kind of personality that tends to become soldiers. What kind of person deliberately chooses a dangerous, difficult life, poorly paid, motivated by mostly symbolic honors and the approval of his or her peers? It's difficult to write the military mindset without either reading these two books, having been in the military, or resorting for cartoonish cliches.
