The thing is, millennia of military culture is devoted to training people out of simply avoiding fighting by running away, or even fear of death, because otherwise it can't function and those who run away endanger others by doing so.
I'm reminded of Admiral Byng being court-martialled (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng) and the famous line "in this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time pour encourager les autres"; the phrase "pour encourager les autres" has entered English to refer to any punishment which is intended to have a strong behavioral effect on the non-punished members of the same class. There will definitely be an element of that here. This guy is being punished conspicuously to remind other pilots that ejecting is a last resort.
> In a a high risk-high reward situation, I strongly prefer hyperrational risk calculators (in opposite to risk avoiders - the common person in society) over hypermasculine risk takers - but I'm a nerd.
There are no such "hyperrational risk calculators", you just mean "someone who would make the same decision as me in this situation".
> the military wants to bully around and show macho behavior
Well, yes, that's kind of intrinsic to the nature of an organization which exists to project force.