I don't so much care about who you respect more, but I object to your characterizations of both groups.

First of all, I don't generalise either force, both have good and bad apples.

That's exactly what you're doing in both cases. You're taking your own experiences with police and assuming it's indicative of the whole. You're taking anecdotal evidence about the military and assuming it's indicative of the whole. Adding a "there are obviously exceptions" caveat that doesn't really figure into the logic you apply doesn't mean that you've stopped generalizing.

In each case, you're selectively accepting evidence. I'm not very familiar with British law enforcement, but I could obviously point out some serious problems with police brutality and excessive force showcased in America. And while I agree that many police officers do what they do to protect people, a large number of them also do it for the power. Your negative description of some of the people in the military could just as easily apply to the police, except the ones who join the police are actively trying to dominate and control the people around them with the backing of legal authority.

Police officers tend to be friendlier people.

You and I have had very different experiences. I say this as a person who trained some police officers: a lot of them are assholes. They liked imposing their will on other people just because they could. They liked being in a position where people were effectively forced to respect them.

Many were not like that. Most were good people. But enough of them were like that that I look at your average patrol officer with a pinch of distrust and suspicion. I know how much that guy sitting in the speed trap might be salivating over the prospect of taking his shitty day out on me and how much he might enjoy deciding whether to give me a ticket or a warning depending on how deferential and respectful I am.

But lets be honest here people, the infantry 'squaddies' of the army are typically not the nicest people going around.

I would say that, like most organizations on the planet, the military contains a broad spectrum of people with varying backgrounds and temperaments. Many are bad people. Many are good people. Most are in the middle and alternate between being bad and good depending on what they had for breakfast that morning.

You have to account for the very different jobs police and the infantry are asked to do. Police are trying to maintain civility in what is usually an already-civil society. They perform civilization maintenance. The infantry's job is to locate, close with and kill an enemy in hostile environments and shitty conditions. They impose civilization where it does not exist or disrupt it where it is in conflict with their civilization.

The infantryman's job demands aggression because the job is about killing people and breaking things. If we accept that that function is necessary, we have no business condemning someone who does it because we find it distasteful. It's like looking down your nose at the executioner when you vote for the death penalty. If somebody has to do it to maintain the life you take for granted (which depends on the economic and political power of your country), then you shouldn't condemn them without renouncing that life.

but they wouldn't hesitate to take my freedom if ordered to.

Wait...what? Granted, my experience was with the American military (which IMO would never do that as it presently exists), but I worked with some Brits and they didn't really seem like automatons. My impression was that they would have the exact same reaction that most Americans would if told to impose something like martial law on their native soil: they wouldn't do it.

What I really don't understand about your view is why you constantly equivocate and say that both groups are varied and that you don't generalize...but the entire thing is based on generalizations you tacitly accept.