We don't. We don't expect anything. We do our job. What other people do is up to them, and if they choose to support us, then they can do it, its their right, just like you have your right to rant here on Y!A.
Yes, there are jerks in any population. I know a lot more civilian jerks then ones in the military, especially since there are about 300 civilians for every service member. Ofcourse the one jerk gives the rest a bad name.
People often choose to support the military in the same way they choose to support someone who works in any dangerous profession, police and fire fighters too. The focus on the military recently is because of the war. In the 90's, nobody cared about us much, deploying in bulk and actually getting news coverage for that changes things.