Here's the deal...
A private, natural-born (or naturalized) citizen of the USA is actually a corporate construct in the eyes of the Judiciary. There is NO such thing as a "sovereign person" in the US legal system any more, for most "people". So when they issue you a ticket, they need to know which "corporate entity" they much charge to make it legal.
Active duty military personnel have handed over control of their "corporate entity" to the US Government during their duty, and therefore, when a municipality issues an active duty military "person" a citation, they are technically required to have an officer present for the hearing if you contest it, because a non-officer is not an "authorized agent" of the representative controlling Corporation. And if the military member is an officer himself, he cannot represent "himself" as a corporate entity either, but must have a non-involved "corporate representative" to authorize the civilian jurisdiction to levy said fine or charge against the "controlling corporation".
Technically, without authorization from a "legal corporate representative", such a citation (actually, in legal terms, it is a levy) cannot be finalized unless a legal representative of the "controlling corporation" is present to agree to the terms. If you pay it, it is not actually a legal transaction, and THAT is why the judges get cranky if you don't bring an officer. Even though they enjoy stealing your money in these revenue-enhancement scams, they like to do things "by the books". And acting like you actually "own" the corporate construct that stands for "you" is not the proper way to do thing, ESPECIALLY since, while on active duty, the US government has proxy ownership of your "corporate person".
The lack of existence of "sovereign persons" in US law is a VERY convoluted, counter-intuitive, and mind-boggling construct. Most people don't even realize that they, as sovereign individuals don't really exist to the legal system. This is why the names on court documents are almost always typed in all-caps (unless they are someone super-rich or very powerful). Capitalized names have a VERY specific meaning in US legal documents--they represent "corporate entities"...