teeteringhead, BEags,
I agree that a love of flying (and possibly booze and birds) should be the main reason for wanting to become one of HM's finest, but you can't blame the boy for worrying about his future finances. How many people would really have joined up in the first place, or stayed in past their second tour/first secondary duty for minimum wage and no pension? We'd have an Air Force consisting almost entirely of super-keen teenagers - possibly no bad thing - and I imagine the ground branches, without even any decent toys to play with, would have serious recruiting problems.
I didn't care much about the money when I was 18 either, but people get old...
BCH