You’ll get a lot of advice in your career. There are so many options, paths, and wickets to hit if you’re going to make it to the senior ranks. There’s one piece of advice I’ll share with you: You need to know what your goals are in your career and stick with them. And for me, that goal is health insurance.

People ask me why I’d stay in the Reserves after my 20 years. “You’ve given enough” they say. It’s true, I may never reach another promotion or have another assignment that I’m excited about. I can say what I am excited about is low-cost health insurance. So long as I serve with honor two days a month, I get 30 days a month of health insurance for the low price of $35 a month. Just a little more than a dollar a day! That’s cheaper than the McDonald’s dollar menu, since I always get more than one thing each day. It’s unbeatable, and motivates me to put the uniform on occasionally.

No amount of pay or promotion is going to get you through the really hard times in the military. For me, deployments away from home, toxic leadership or challenging assignments couldn’t ruffle me. I knew myself and knew what I was there for. Things might be tough, but at the end of the day I have the unflappable confidence that they can’t take away my health insurance.