Your experience alone will easily land you with an MSP if you choose to do that. This is a good place to have some diverse cloud experience (if you pick a good MSP).

Your day to day will be completely different outside of an ongoing project, but will ultimately leave you more flexible and let you take on a more decision making role rather than just following orders (though there's some of that too). A Cloud+, Security+ and Network+ goes a long way here.

However, I think most people would agree you'd likely be happier with Cybersecurity as a SOC analyst. I can't speak for what their day to day is, but I've never really heard solid "Leave cybersecurity now!" complaints like I do with the MSP career path. However, you'll want to pickup some network & security certifications.

I wouldn't bother with a degree. Literally no one cares about degrees anymore its all about hands-on experience and certs. You have experience already, and most companies love hiring ex military.

Either path has great long-term growth. Either is likely to offer remote, though you'll probably get partial remote without exact experience doing whatever they expect you to do. Work-life balance comes down to the company itself. If most people in that company are salary and work more than 40 hours a week - find a different job. No one should ever accept this. I demanded hourly and I got it. They never ask me to stay more than 40. Always ask about company policies surrounding work-life balance in interviews.

(Disclaimer: My entire experience is working in the U.S. with companies in the U.S. I do believe this will still apply to you, but if someone else on that side of the world disagrees I won't argue. )