USAF? USA? USMC?  

ACIP for ten years of aviation duty is $1000 per month.

https://www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/Pay-Tables/AVIP3/

You are kidding with this HAA stuff right?  BAH is untaxed and many states also don't tax active duty income.  Any civil job pays federal tax on about one third more of gross their income. Then there is the healthcare you have to pay for out of pocket at any civil job.  So subtract about $5K from whatever your civil job pays you.  To equal CW3 pay at 12 years as a civilian pilot you need to be making at least $94,000 per year at an HAA job, and you have no retirement other than a 401k you have to pay into.  If you are an O-4 civil HAA pay is going to have to around $115K to equal military pay. 

Also no HAA company is going to offer a pension after 20 years.  Is there an HAA company where you can retire at 38 years old after 20 years with the company with any type of a pension?

It is also more likely that civilian jobs will pick you, you won't pick them, so while you have the right to refuse a job, you probably aren't truly picking the location of your job, especially in the beginning of your career, so the amount of control you have is fairly illusionary.  The only real control you have is whether you want to be employed or unemployed.  Then if you work HAA the company can still fire you at any time, pretty much without cause, the hospital can also get you fired, and the med crew can get you fired as well.  At least in the armed forces you have some recourse and legal protections for that sort of thing. 

What you call "signing your life away" is actually lifelong financial security for you and your family if you can manage to make it to 20 years.  The cycle of deployments and sleeping in tents etc. is cyclical, and any assignment rarely lasts longer than three or four years before doing something else.