You'll find that the military today is not rigidly structured. It's more of a matrix organization with team leaders. You also get to work with a number of different groups, so in those ways it closely approximates the civilian work world. With Congress's recent reduction of military benefits and pay, people aren't staying in the military for their entire careers anymore. They're doing 10 or 20 years of service, then leaving the armed forces.
Military personnel are very assertive.
They're also very team oriented and sensitive to diversity and EEO issues. Their training is very strong, and I think that the civilian industry is starting to figure out how much it costs to train people these days. You used to have people coming out of Korea or Vietnam with a lot of skills that would translate well into jobs, but now there just aren't that many civilians who have been trained by the military. Yes, they should play up their training and their leadership skills. They should also look at the ethics of the company they want to work for to see if those ethics match their own.