Someone on this board said pilot military pilot pay is better than civilian with comparable experience. For the most part this is true, but lets look at how this happened. Prior to 1992 military pay was far below civilian pay. Then in 1992 we had a huge draw-down, we had a president who "loathed the military" and life in the military was downright bad. Then after a while the president decide he really needed the military for all of his foreign diplomacy operations. Guess what, he noticed they were all gone and the only ones left were planning to leave; "quick, start the bonuses and pay them more before they all leave".
Back then the only reason they were able to keep anyone at all was to increase the bonuses and raise the pay. With this new system, they'll never be able to raise the pay high enough. They say they will pay more for some of the challenging tours. I ask this board, if you could leave tomorrow, had a good job offer, and take your retirement with you, how much of a bonus would be required for you to deploy one more time.