And my grandfather seems to take it too seriously.
I showed him my Napoleonic gear last weekend. He started cleaning my bayonet and gun and gave me all kind of tips how to do it right. Every little piece of dirt and rust had to be completely eliminated, every scratch had to be removed... He freaked out that my trousers were slightly dirty and the belts weren't white anymore.
I get that during WW2, his survival depended on how he kept his stuff alive, but I am not in a war, if my stuff looks slightly dirty and my bayonet has a scratch on the bottom, it does not matter. I guess he also did not get that back in the day, during the Napoleonic wars, people did not have access to the materials and tools that they had in WW2 or today.
He ended up polishing my gun and bayonet for more than an hour, even though I already cleaned off all the dirt and rust earlier.