Originally Posted by Packrat

Certainly. Lets imagine the average Joe goes into the military at 23-24. If he only serves 20 years he's coming out at 43-44. That gives him 22-23 years of airline service IF he gets hired right out of the box.

In the mean time, he's got guys getting on with his major in their late 20's early 30's. Those guys will have 10 to 15 years seniority over him when he finally does get hired.

Who's going to be sitting in the LIMITED number of widebody seats as Mr. Military gets to the end of his career? You got it, the young guys who went the civilian route.

The best a military retiree can hope for is a narrow body Captain seat with little or no commuting. Not that there's anything wrong with that, its just a full career miltary retiree is fooling himself if he imagines he'll ever see the left seat of a 777.