Not bragging, just relating and showing the possibiliities, hope you do great. I was in USAF for 11yrs, first as jet engine mech, then was the workgroup computer guy sometime in 1997 stationed in england, made SrA BTZ, always wanted to do computers (came in open mechanics) so i retrained at keesler to comm 3c2, worked spacecom, Then came to schriever for spacecom. cool stuff, lots of crypto and long haul circuits. Then went to turkey for 2yrs did networks switches routers, upgraded T1s with hubs at each building to ethernet and ATM, cool... did cool networking stuff in turkey izmir, istanbul, eskeshir, adana. Then decided i wanted to teach tech school, went to teacher, taught 3c2 for 3.5 years, then got out and moved to the dakotas.
I got out as E6/Tsgt, making round 40k/yr i guess in '07. Got a job at a cable ISP for 3mths making 52K, got canned. Got a job as a consultant at a firm lots of travel to rural ISPs for network stuff, upgrades, configs, 55K, got job at call center financial type place, making 72k in 09. promoted to Sr., 78K, few raises, to 82k. just got accepted for a SR IT Sec engineer for round 98K, just started my ITSEC Masters at WGU this Jan 1st.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Just wanted to give you some motivation dude, good luck, keep with it. Took me 15yrs to get my bachelors, finally did BSITS 4yrs ago at WGU, loved it. Cant wait to get done with this degree and certs, guaranteed 100-140+ at my next job.

I love my current job. its chaos, its crazy, lots of work, shits always broke, on-call get called few times a week... but fuck it they pay me good and now with the new job, i can work from home too.

Thanks for serving! Good luck.