Mail-man,
Please do not misconstrue my comments as being unsympathetic to GA. Far from it: despite wearing the blue, I attended more RAPACs, CASA and AsA meetings than I can remember and heard loud and clear the issues of concern. Most were/are legitimate IMHO.
To get back to your question - what makes the military so special? In the context of the current argument on ADS-B, nothing other than fleet size and the fact (without belaboring the point again) that spending tax-payer dollars on the legacy fleet could not be justified in respect of the Defence budget.
This is a compartmentalised argument, Mail-man. It's probably not the best term, but my job was to do the best in the interests of my employer (the tax-payer), within my 'compartment' and help ensure that funds were not unnecessarily wasted when sensible compromise was available.
My job was not to champion GA; regardless of my sympathies. That is an altogether separate 'compartment,' and GA had to/must pursue it's case from within its own resources on its own patch.
But that's all ancient history - I'm just glad to be out of it.