sled dog
Your "Civilian" will almost certainly never have had to arrive home on a December evening and tell his pregnant wife that he is "off tomorrow" to the other side of the World to intervene in a dispute about "Land Rights" and he doesn't know when he will be back.
Most "Civilians" do not live in a world of imperatives or where the telephone rings at 2 AM and you have to go to work immediately and you have no idea when you will be home again.
HM Forces do not have "Trade Unions" - what has been present in the past is a sense of being valued.
The Military Covenant may not be quite dead - but it certainly needs some Resuscitation and TLC.