I have a bit of a different take on all of this.

My background is civilian but it's different than the many. I was only an active CFI for a very short time, I never worked at any regional and I've had the opportunity to do a lot of different kinds of flying.

After years off odd jobs from grand canyon tours to jumping skydivers I wound up in Northern AK.

I flew as a smoke jumper pilot for several years in the summer and as a polar expedition/scientific support pilot in the winter. The smoke jumper mission includes tons of low level flying in the mountains at slow speed in low visibility dropping para cargo at 100' AGL. Polar flying involved lots of near zero visibility landings on skies on ice floes hundreds of miles off shore.

I flew single pilot in a Merlin III for two years based out of South Eastern NM flying all over the country and Mexico and Canada.

Just like some of the comments made about military flying not being applicable to the airlines. What in the world does dropping para cargo at 100' AGL in dense smoke in rugged terrain have to do with the airlines?

The answer is that it doesn't matter what your background is. In my opinion the more varied the better. Flying low level at high speed at night in a fighter makes your a better pilot, aerobatics, instrument work, formation, eight legs a day in the weather, single pilot night freight, crop dusting. It's all good and it's all relevant.

After spending seven years in the training department at UAL I've seen it all from just about every background. The good the bad and the ugly exist in all facets and backgrounds. One of the most shockingly horrible pilots I've ever witnessed was an SR 71 guy. That blew me away! I've also had to bust guys with tons of regional time who were atrocious pilots. There is no telling based on background. And of course the VAST majority of guys from any background are pretty good pilots.

This military VS civilian thing needs to stop it is the number one bias in the cockpit it is totally STUPID and it is completely irrelevant. In reality it's all about inflated fragile ego's on both sides.