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My main hesitation is wasting my precious years of my youth on something that won't advance my skills.

E.g. as somebody who picked up programming at 25, I already fear that my brain is now struggling to pick up concepts that my younger brain would have.

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Don't be afraid of that. The programmer's profession is one of constant study and learning. It would be impossible if people actually had trouble learning things by 25, and the field won't move at the pace it does. if people, or at least some people, lost the ability to constantly learn by 45 or 55 or whatever age looks ridiculously old to you.

There's no denying the fact that many engineers quit programming by the age of 35.

Mostly because they found rewarding opportunity as leaders of teams.

Which, again, takes quite some learning to do well.

There is nothing preventing you from working on skills while being in the military.

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