The pay for the Royal Marine Army (British Army not the TA that most sign up to) is suppose to be pretty decent.
I know the Royal Air Force pay is pretty damn decent;
£300/week in basic training lasts 6weeks, then you do tour training (this is before you select what you want to do) another 3months at £550/week... when you finally make officer status you start earning £650/week, i believe that steadily increases as your rank does but i never got that far.
That is all Tax Excempt (armed personel are not taxxed on thier wages), not to mention you don't have to pay for food/room/clothes/etc... for work, unless you need extra kit. Which isn't exceedingly expensive but is actually enough for people in the army to bitch because the equippment they're given atm isn't upto scratch.
This said if you serve in the British Army you are more likely to see live combat within a 3 year tour than any other armed forces. (mainly because the British Army make the bulk of the UN forces)
But actually seeing live combat is still pretty slim. You get to travel for free and are trained to use alot of machinary that give you alot of qualifications should you choose to leave.
The Vehicle License for example will allow you to drive HGVs, you can study for college degree's and such with hands-on experience.
It's a job like any other. Personally I think anyone who becomes a Policeman, particularly in Colombia/Brazil/United States is far more insane. Particularly as the pay is often aweful.
And at the end of the day they're almost the same job, one is just one a global scale rather than neighbourhood scale.
Athlon64 FX-51 | 1.5Gb DDR2 PC3400 | GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 56.60 | DirectX9.1 SDK | Audigy2 | Windows XP 64-Bit