No one else has abandoned that sort of money
- the money probably wouldn't have been a massive issue seeing as his military pension entitlements as an AVM would be right up there. Assuming he dug deep enough to satisfy himself it was indeed a **** show, then leaving doesn't sound like a particularly courageous act.
Not having a go at him personally, just the idea that having taken on a job and seen the reality of it, I would think the 'do the right thing' options would be to either go hard to fix it, or if choosing to leave, disclose frankly to the responsible politicians and taxpaying public exactly what you found wanting, in order to generate some proper focus and action by someone else.
What could possibly be gained by just leaving without blowing the lid off it as best you could? Whose face-saving is more important than fixing a broken system?