I joined the military because my mother had told me there would be no college money available after high school, and I was an indifferent student. (I passed trigonometry with a D-, after pledging the teacher I'd never take another math course!)
After 20 years of military service, I retired with college credit hours in workcenter management and physical education. The president of our local university wanted to give me an honorary degree in Aviation History, because of a 44-article newspaper series I did on the history of flight, each of which required about 15 hours of research a week. A board of regents member with whom I'd butted heads on a news article managed to kill that idea...
But, it's funny! The U.S. government's Office of Personnel Management, based on my experience, rates me as qualified for a GS-13 in Public Affairs and as a Writer-Editor. The educational requirements for those same positions call for a PhD! Yet, hiring supervisors will happily hire a freshly-minted PhD with absolutely no experience.
Hang in there, my friends! Stay in the grind, get the sheepskins for the wall, and you'll get your fistful of dollars or rupees or maos... Take it from a grizzled vet who passed up schooling opportunities because he was too damned busy doing the job and fulfilling the mission... Not complaining - I could have dropped it on the shoulders of others, but I had to live with myself afterwards.