The 35k reads to me like an enlistment bonus not a base wage. You can google base wages for the US military if your actually interested. That said if we're talking the US military there isn't a chance in hell that it's a 40 hour work week. He'd be lucky for a 60 hour work week and 80 is pretty standard if your leadership sucks. I had a cot in my office I used multiple nights a week when working for a particularly dickish commander once.

There are plenty of terrible things about the military, stupid long hours, highly toxic work environment, alcohol abuse is encouraged, rape culture is accepted, etc. But the pay isn't all that bad when you add everything up (base pay, tax breaks, housing allowance, on post child care discounts, uniform allowance, free health care, dependants, re-enlistment bonuses, etc). The per hour rate isn't good but I've also never gotten the equivalent time off in PTO that I got in leave either.

There also isn't a wage gap for minorities, there's a ton of other bigotry, but no wage gap.