What Buoy 15 meant was attention to detail. If you do get your capitalisation wrong, badly mispuncutate and miss-spell easy words, the message you put across is not illiteracy but carelessness.
To avoid Buoy 15's error, and much as do as I say not what I am doing, craft your replies in a word processor, spell checkem, and then paste them into a message.
I an interview film we were shown, circa 1960s, the candidate had a button down short, which was unusually in the air force. He also had long hair. Neither were negative points. What was negative was the fact his collar was not buttoned down and his hair was not properly combed or brushed - attention to detail.
Many young men wear earings. Some aircrew have holes in their ears. I have not seen any aircrew wear earings (males that is). Conforming to ones peer group and team work is everything, at least early on.