Mil, civilian, who cares - what matters is perspective. If Alaska is your first airline after leaving the military (or 135 or whatever), then there's a good chance you have a lot to learn about the industry. There's also a good chance that through no particular fault of your own you don't even know what kinds of work rules you are missing by working here, whereas the guys coming from previous airline jobs, or multiple previous airline jobs, know exactly what they're missing here. And that knowledge of the industry that extends outside of one's own airline is what gets us a contract that holds its own against the rest, and that effects all of us.