Life is tough, college is not.
Funny thing is getting up early to go to the gym or do some course work isn't tough, almost everybody who goes to college does that. Long days? College. (17 hour days for weeks on end through every semester for me.) You get weekends, college students don't. You get paid for your hours, college students need to work a job outside of their full time (40+ hour) studies.
At least in New Zealand, universities structure their courses so that only the top percentage of the population can get through the stress and workload - something like an 80-90% dropout rate by the end of the bachelor's degree. (Weren't you bragging about an 80% dropout rate in your course?)
What is tough is successfully completing something that medical professionals tell you that you very likely can't do, whether it's a college degree in an "inappropriate" field or learning to walk again.
Put this another way, if you know you can do something, is completion of it worthy of note?
Put another way: Life is tough, military is not[0]
[0] no true scotsman.
What I was objecting to
A) "Life is tough/ college isn't". Put in those terms, "Life is tough, X isn't" works for basically anything. And, I would argue, military service is closer to college (specific schedules, insulated from real world, the amount of time spent on PS/XBOX) than real life.
B) the tone that seems to indicate that the military has a monopoly in all types of toughness.