I was a SWO before going into medicine. My first divo tour was in the engineering dept and my second was in weapons. Did well in both. I'm not sure I agree with you about the SWOs or pilots getting paid well relative to their civilian peers.
I’d just note that the service academies crowd the rankings for highest paid graduates at early/mid career https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/bachelors#ful...
Anecdotally, I had a reservist friend with a Harvard MBA who realized he could pull down more money as an activated reservist in Bahrain than his role at BlackRock.
Your mileage may vary…