The views expressed here are not completely my own, but include a sampling of fellow unit members:
When was the last time the airlines sent a pilot to live in a tent for a year in the desert to fetch coffee for a senior executive? Or for that matter, sent them overseas and specifically prohibited families from accompanying them?
When you're on an airline trip, you know when you'll get home. Mil will keep you out beyond the end of your trip, and doesn't tell you when you're getting home. When you do get home, you get 1 or 2 days off, then back out "until you get back."
Wives (not mine) getting calls from unit members while husbands deployed or on trips. (most of these pre-date Caller ID) Calls range from simple heavy breathing to being told husband is dead. Yes, I know that wife, it really happened.
I think the general frustration with the military not taking care of the family stems not with how they are or are not actually treated, but rather with how the leadership says it's taking care of them, and then doesn't. No airline pilot expects the family to be directly taken care of by the company. It's not part of the contract. Sure, furlough hurts the family, but that's part of the deal, and no company exec ever promised you anything different.
On the other hand, every day, every deployment, every trip, leadership promises to take care of your family. Sometimes indirectly, by providing housing (sub-standard by their own definitions) or directly with programs, freebies, counseling, etc. But in the end, they don't actually do them, under fund them, or outright cancel them. They never call to check up on the spouse, they don't provide help with the things they really need.
Example: During deployments spouses with kids can get "free" childcare. But it has so many restrictions on when and where as to be useless. It's only with on-base in-home providers - not babysitters in your neighborhood, not the care provider you already have, not even at the base day care facility. It's only available a couple hours once a week, and only on a particular day pre-designated. Worse yet, your kids Must be already registered in the base day care system to use it. If they're in Kindercare downtown - tough. But every deployment, leadership briefs the families on how this wonderful benefit exists and how they're providing it free of charge, but they don't brief the fine print, cause then they'd be admitting to the uselessness of it.
It's about the broken promises and outright lies. It's about the abuse and systemic ineptitude. It's about them saying they care, when they really don't.