Oscar, between enlisted, AF Academy, active duty, guard, and reserve, I hit ~21 yrs active duty over more than 30 years. With my guard/reserve time, there was another 2 1/4 yrs toward active duty retirement added in. When the dust settled, I survived 7+ years of furlough (so far) as well as can be expected.
Life hands you a lemon and you can either make lemonaid or stick a glock in your mouth. I'm not going to tell you that I didn't consider both paths.

As far as the SWA/AT show, I'll get to watch that again with my combined company as UAL and CAL pilots duke it out. Fortunately, it won't effect me much. I'm a junior pizzant in the entire show.