Just to pop in - you don't have to go into the military to become a programmer, no, but you get different opportunities. For example, one of my lecturers was in the Royal Navy and programmed systems for submarines (had to spent months under sea testing and fixing), and another used to program the systems for fighter jets.

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As for my life's calling, I too would like to be a programmer - operating systems or suites, though I'd love to go into user interface design.