Comment by kamaal

Military pensions continue to be the top reason why most young people across the world are attracted to join the forces.

But there is a catch though. You really have to serve the minimum time. And like you said most get either fed up, or they are discharged early. The other part is in many parts of the world, there is relative peace, so its a safe bet. Plus most of the times apart from the training days, they actually see good physical exercise everyday to its like a win-win job.

In India armed forces have asked for a kind of roll over pensions, where every year your pensions are revised and you are paid as much as the highest paid servicemen retiring in the rank you retired from. Of course there is a lot of opposition from the civilian side for something like this.

Given the relative peace in the Indian subcontinent, in most cases its possible for many people to make it through without much risk, and if you join early, you can come out by 40, with a neat yearly increasing pension for the rest of your life.

They also have short service commission jobs in the Indian army, which don't carry these benefits. And they often go unfilled for the obvious reasons.