Reply #7: Really depends on the time period.

[HawkerHurricane]

If there's a big gap between wars (or only small wars), you end up with people with no direct experience with combat at the top. Using my own experience (realizing that I was a enlisted man) I signed up in 1984, was still in training during Lebanon and Grenada, missed Gulf War 1 because I was working at a training unit, missed Afghanistan because my unit was rotating back to the states on 9/11 and needed a refit, and made it to Operation Iraqi Liberation for one tour. So, I had served 19 years before being involved in a 'war'. If I were an officer, and got my promotions 'on schedule', I'd be a major ship captain or small ship squadron commander before ever seeing 'combat'.