Here's a page that gives the range for each rank [1] to give an idea what they can make before they leave and start contracting. Click on a particular rank and you'll get a page with a slider for years to see how pay progresses within that range over time.

A general makes the most, $221 900 per year.

That site also has pay for non-military jobs. Lots of interesting stuff there.

For example here's their page for computer science [2]. Average government computer scientists makes $142k. There's a graph showing the distribution and it is very uneven--looks like you can make pretty good pay or pretty terrible pay. 5 times as many computer scientists at the FAA (250) than at the IRS (53). 180 at the FBI. Nearly 1500 computer scientists total.

Some surprised me. The government has a little over 1000 archeologists [3]. I guess that explains where all those other thing came from in the warehouse they stored the Ark in!

[1] https://www.federalpay.org/military/air-force/ranks

[2] https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/computer-sc...

[3] https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/archeology

I'd say $200k is about the floor, including enlisted, not just officers. Assuming they did 20 years in, they should be able to land at least that much for a boring office job in the US and if they didn't have something notable working for them (good network, what kinds of work they did, that sort of thing). That'll mean an NCO rank of some sort, for enlisted, and probably at least a bachelor's degree (it's strongly encouraged past a certain point) plus the all-important clearance. It goes up from there—way up, at the higher officer's ranks (O-6 and up, say), where whole new tiers of job open up, like high-level lobbying jobs, think tanks, C-suite positions, and even media.

Details of your service, who you know, what you're willing to do (travel, say) can start adding fives and even sixes of figures to your comp in a hurry (each!), from there.

[EDIT] This is for post-"retirement" former military folks in general, not that specific case. You're probably not getting one at all for under $200k/yr unless they just don't want to do one of the kinds of jobs that pay a premium for retired military. And that's, again, way on the low end.

[EDIT EDIT] Also if you account for all benefits, the multiplier on military comp may not be as large. These places tend to offer good bennies, too, but not... you know, housing and such.

My rough guess would be around $400,000. He mentioned "A thousand dollars a day, including weekends". Atop this, effectively zero living expenses (family still at home, to be sure), plus a whole host of stipends and per diems.