Not sure why this attracts so much ire. What you did was contract out of the 2nd state pension (SERPS) so that you could get your Forces pension without paying tax on it. Pretty well everyone who had a separate (forces/company/WHY) pension was strongly advised to contract out of SERPS to avoid your 2nd pension being eaten away in tax. Overall you're better off.
Could it possibly be that this was explained, but at that age you weren't really paying much attention to what some old duffer was saying about pensions (not a subject that was high on your personal priority list at the time)?
PDR