Best quote of the movie!

You're an errand boy. Sent by grocery clerks. To collect the bill


*******
"By this point in the film, Coppola has made it clear that there is no real divide between an assassin and a soldier, in his point of view. Kurtz draws Willard's (and the audience's) attention to the lack of agency that Willard and his fellow soldiers have in determining their actions. Ultimately, Willard has been both a soldier and an assassin, but Kurtz is drawing attention to the fact that the separation is in name alone. Willard has come to assassinate Kurtz as part of his duty as a soldier, because he is beholden to the army. Without the umbrella of an official mission, men like Willard and Kilgore are simply assassins. Meanwhile, just because Kurtz is operating outside of the Army's jurisdiction, he has crossed the line from soldier to assassin, although the Army is committing much greater atrocities than Kurtz is."
https://www.gradesaver.com/apocalypse-now/study-guide/quotes
*******

Additional perspective is that Willard is just being told what to do. If he was not in the army and someone just told him what Kurtz was upto, there would be a good chance he would go, alright, whats your point? You should see the shit the army gets upto!

Does this extend into normal life? Yeah I would say so

People from all over, do things because its the done thing. And its the done thing because other people decided the societal frameworks for which are forever changing and fluid.

People do all sorts of shit for their managers, stuff they would never do in a million years if they were not getting paid. But the only reason why they need to get paid is because housing is expensive because everyone wants to live in a city. But they spend most of the time not in the house, but at work. But they still work for the house and housing.

Who's the errand boy and who's the grocery clerk in that scenario? Maybe the employee and manager are both the errand boys, and the grocery clerk is the man behind the curtain.