Well spoken that man!
If Nigel and his friends think that being a mil' pilot is an easy way to an ATPL, perhaps he should try and get through the selection tests, and subsequent line training. It would be interesting to see how they get on.
As well as attaining and keeping the standards required, mil' pilots are doing essentially the same job as civi's, the exception being that instead of carrying pax and cargo and keeping the plane in one piece, some of them are required to carry out the other duties most of us are glad to leave to them.
I'm not ex -mil', but apart from mandatory CRM courses and other fine tuning exercises, Idont see a problem with ex -mil' pilots getting dispensations for the civvie pilots licence.
Flying is perhaps the only mil' trade that has direct parallels with the civi' world, and I think that by the time a mil' pilot has reached the standards required of the ATPL, AND got the experience required for civi' flight deck positions, they will have more than paid back the training costs.
