Lt Col Brian Niswander I can see where he is coming from. There is some of that. It's hard for people to believe, for instance, that at 23 years old you could have supervised 30-60 people in a platoon. Or 27 you could be a commander of 100-200 people. The concept of Command in general for that matter. Or understand the role segregation between Officers, Warrant Officers, NCOs, and Enlisted soldiers.

I had situations as a civilian supervisor where they second and triple guess discipline actions like I've never done anything like it before. Man, I've sent people to jail! I think I can handle a simple Letter of Contact (poor equivalent of a counseling statement). They can't fathom you routinely have that kind of authority, especially if it is a smaller organization. Their horizon and world in general is much closer/smaller.

I disagree that you can say there is a constant when their exists an infinite number of variables.

Not entirely, f we're talking about the quote in the green illustration. For me, only the defense industry recognized anything about my service. However, if suppose that if you are retiring as a E-8/9 or as a (I'm guessing here) O-5 or higher, then I would expect some of the corporate world to recognize that if you are looking for a management position. The problem I see, and that I think the quote above refers to, is that the civilian world has UTTERLY no idea what Soldiers and even relatively junior leaders do in the military. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. (For that matter, many veterans don't completely get what their peers from different services or MOSes did.) Finally, and this applies mostly to the Army and Marine Corps, the business world doesn't need anyone to throw hand grenades, so there should be an emphasis in the corporate world on knowledge of how to make money (basic microeconomics, accounting concepts, stuff like that). The thing is, most civilians don't seem to know that either.