My benefits (in terms of health care, pension, 401k, etc) in industry are _substantially_ better in industry than they would have been in academia. Industry has both better benefits and higher salary and shorter working hours.

Academia has flexibility and challenge (and politics, to be fair). Despite all of the downsides, I miss it.

Have an upvote, though I would say flexiblty and challenge are real benefits and it would be possible to calculate a dollar value for them if you knew the right data to look for.

A lot of the people in the military have a legitimate gripe because they see paramilitary civilian contractors do the same job or nearly the same job they are doing for huge amounts of pay.

You can retire from the army after a mere 20 years with about 1/2 your base pay for life plus free or cheap medical benefits for life etc. Thus, if you go in at age 18, you can start over at 38 with a raftload of bennies and pay until you die. On top of that, you can pursue whatever other career you so desire. Name me a single civilian position that offers the same.

good point. I forgot about the 1/2 base pay part, despite it's what my dad is doing.