We might not have been paid as well as airline people-tube drivers, but we were paid pretty reasonably and the job satisfaction was a key factor.
and
As someone said to me in the sim recently "the Air Force don't need to give me more money or FRIs or whatever. They just need to make the job less ****."
sum it up beautifully. As I've said a few times on this forum, this is the crux of the issue. It's not a difficult concept to grasp, it's actually very simple. Aircrew are leaving as everything is just so nauseatingly difficult these days. As such, the pay reward is not enough to offset the constant BS. In fact the BS is so great these days, any FRI would have to
massive to compensate.