Insofar as it goes it does all come down to television. While the military would suffer numerous losses and so forth to zombies in real life there would be entire units that would be unaffected and able to act against threats in an organized manner. Once they understood the nature of the threat there would be no chance those men would go down until they run out of bullets and they would torch any large concentrations of zombies, civilians possible or not.
You would only need one group of soldiers and there would certainly be at least that. Moving in armed caravans they would systematically lock down bases with additional supplies and readily set themselves up to be safe. By setting up night watches inside domiciles you could prevent abrupt death of personnel from causing walkers to infiltrate the barracks. Bases are easily locked down and no amount of walkers can knock over those walls.
Such a group could retain civilians and, with care, survive in the apocalyptic world. They could start making bullets (someone will know how to do so), and would probably be able to establish an entire community. 238
This is not the story they wanted to tell. It's not the story we would have wanted to see- although it might be interesting in its own right.
Walkers are slow, unintelligent, and unarmed . They would be completely unable to stop the military from stomping them once they understood what was going on. It would be precarious but within human capabilities to manage using simple, no nonsense precautions.
A television show done in that manner would be boring. Once there is no threat there is no show. In any case, it is possible (at least at the point of the first season) that there ARE military units doing just that. They may not be in the Atlanta area, however. It would do <PERSON> and company no good for the contingent out of Fort Lewis in Washington to have locked down the local ammunition stores, squirreled away thousands of civilians, and set up night patrols to ensure no walkers arise, would it? 619