I never said that. I just said you're wrong about the military being paid exceptionally well. At least not the enlisted.
Oh, and those hours are not temporary for enlisted folks. At sea it's always 12on/12off, 7 days a week plus watches. On shore it's always 40hours a week plus watches. When I was young in the Navy supervisors would give guys some time off if they stood a late watch the night before, but that all stopped about the time I had 15 years in. It got to the point where compensation for extra duties was no longer allowed so a 48-56 hour work week was the norm depending on how many duty sections the command was set up for. As I told someone else earlier, at sea work hours were actually more like 16on/8off if you had EXREPs in the shop (which my shops always did because of what I worked on).
Again, I loved the first 16 years of my Navy career, so I'm not complaining, I'm just saying your estimation of monetary compensation is way higher than what I got paid.
Ok, I just looked it up to make sure I'm not talking out my @ss. An E-6, over 18 years base pay is now a tad over $45k before taxes. And I'm not buying BAH and COMRATS adds another $15k a year, but I suppose it could come close to that, so I'll give you a pass this time.
Navet, I'm in agreement w/ you that the lowest E's aren't "paid well". I joined in 89 and I remember my first paychecks were around $300!
Here's the BAH calculator (this is just BAH, does not include BAS):
https://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/pdcgi/bah/bahsrch.cgi
An E6 living in the DC area gets $2,586 (w/ dependent's) and $2,004 (without). So, an E6 with is getting $31,000+ tax free/year just for housing. Then they are earning (taking from your post, I didn't look this up) another $45K.....then they get a few thousand in BAS. So, they're making around $80K....as an E6!!
Sure, if you're in an operational unit (ship, air squadron, special forces, etc) you are busy and working a lot of hours. I've worked as many or more hours as an Officer as I have as Enlisted. I was a Corpsman when I was enlisted, I worked 7 days a week at times. When I was in a clinical/hospital job I sometimes worked 40 hour weeks w/ duty once or twice a month. I'm in a staff job now as an officer and I work 40-50 hours a week and do some light travel where I have to work weekends (like when I went to the Michigan/Cincinnati game two weeks ago).
My whole point was, when asked, I said that I feel like I am paid well (and sometimes/often times, feel over paid). I really like my job and I'm happy and grateful for it. But I paid my dues as an enlisted man and now I'm 'fat and happy'. BTW, I have a Master Chief (most senior enlisted man, E9) and he works the same exact schedule that I do. He's earned it. In fact, I take on more duties than he does....because I'm "junior" to a Master Chief (don't tell OUR master chief here!!). But a 20 year old uneducated E4 is even making $1650/month in BAH!