...if you only do one or two hitches and walk out the gate with no injuries. In order to see the BIG benefits, you have to stick around for twenty years or more. On face value, the pension and health benefits seem incredibly extravagant, but there's one very simple justification: Few people would stick around and make it a career unless the benefits were better than anything else available....and you need people to stick around. You can't have an army or navy run by privates and petty officers. Looking forward to that monthly pension and lifelong healthcare benefit (interestingly, not provided by the VA) plays a big part in keeping people around for that third tour in Iraq, or keeping them on submarine duty when they can quadruple their salary by operating a nuclear reactor for one of the power companies.