I had a very similar experience to yours -- I was also a programmer and likewise saved up a bunch of money for grad school. I even got my BA while in the service thanks to generous education subsidies to active duty personnel. As for not laughing well most of us have been there. That feeling lasts well beyond basic training.
Even though I started this thread by talking about wanting to fake my death being in the military was overall a very good experience. As somebody else already said down-thread it forces you to mix with a wide variety of people, something we don't do nearly enough as a society. For that reason alone I think it would beneficial to bring back the draft though perhaps minus the part about fighting wars all over the place.
Mandatory civil service could be an alternative to the armed forces, for those that don't want to be involved in fighting. In fact, I would like to see a civil service branch patterned after the military branches (or maybe similar to the peace corp), which would be primarily responsible for all infrastructure projects (road / bridge building, govt. office positions, IT services, etc). This would be an excellent way to get young people who are out of high school into the workforce. Then if they can't find private work after their 2-year civil service stint, they can always re-enlist.
We used to have that in Germany when there was still mandatory military service a few years back.
For historical reasons, refusing to serve with a weapon was very common, and in this case one had to serve an equal time in the civil sector, such as help out in a kindergarten, hospital or old people's home. There was a lot of complaining after the service was abolished due to the missing very cheap labour.
Even though I started this thread by talking about wanting to fake my death being in the military was overall a very good experience. As somebody else already said down-thread it forces you to mix with a wide variety of people, something we don't do nearly enough as a society. For that reason alone I think it would beneficial to bring back the draft though perhaps minus the part about fighting wars all over the place.