I can only speak to the Army side of things, and we'd like this to be more true. The main problem is that we change jobs within the organization too often (like every year or two), and get pushed into management too early, to ever feel like an expert in something. I often feel like we're just pretending while people doing similar jobs in the civilian world (whether it's IT, aviation, medical, etc.) are doing them for real.

However, we also have a breadth of knowledge and longevity with the organization at-large (often starting at 17-18 years old, working our way up the ranks from there) that you probably don't find much in civilian organizations.