Why can military history be publicly popular but academically marginal?

Why is military history popular with the public while often being treated as marginal within academia?

There is no single cause, but uneven standards and the assumption that experience alone makes someone a historian can damage the field's academic reputation.

Military-studies departments can attract many students, research outputs, and funding, so lack of interest does not fully explain the field's position. One possible cause is military history's unusually open boundary between academic and non-academic writing. That openness can produce excellent work from people without formal degrees, but it also encourages some authors to assume that professional military experience automatically supplies historical method. When weak work is accepted by a major press, the reputation of the wider field suffers. The answer remains tentative, but it gives viewers a useful historiographical explanation for the gap between public popularity and academic status.