(Speaking slowly as if to a child, again): Yes our first president was a General; that doesn't mean that military experience is a prerequisite for the job, it just means that he happened to have it.
I was not pointing out that military experience should be a pre-requisite, but instead that if our founding fathers really wanted to "maintain civilian control" as you have eluded here, they would have banned military leaders from being President, which they didn't do.
Instead, what they did do was split control of the military between two of the three pillars of our Democracy, with oversight of the third. What they wanted to point out was not that a civilian
should be in control, but instead that the military has a place in our democracy, but is not as important as the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch or the Judicial Branch.
It doesn't matter if they're civilian or a military person so long as they're elected by the people, cannot unilaterlaly declare war without authorization from Congress and maintains all decisions within the bounds of the Constitution, as reviewed by the Supreme Court.