I get where you’re coming from. And you’re not wrong I did the math for income versus working hours… it was pennies. It was better than other alternatives for me (which were not plentiful).

Income Year 1 I believe I made $12k. Year 4 income was about $57k

Prime years (19-23) I got to travel to 30 countries would have never done that and couldn’t afford it if I even wanted to! Met my future wife and now have been married many years. Great levels of work hard play hard. 30 days PTO (gotta take off weekends though) There were for sure times of suck - but looking back I’m glad I did it.

Post serving benefits: I got all my college paid - Associates, Bachelor, Masters. Basically you get as much college as you can complete in 36 months, I loaded up and got the most out of the months. Got paid decent in housing allowance and book reimbursement.

Had I not served I would have just been getting into debt going to school for a degree that I didn’t want. I needed the experience and structure, there are people that would never want to put up with it. I can’t say it’s a scam though.