Since your DH already has a college degree (or I'm assuming based on the student loans), you might have him look into becoming an Officer. The pay is about double what you'd come in as an enlisted soldier, your housing pay is quite a bit more and you tend to get more say and respect as well. You can see all the options for it
here - not sure what category your DH would fall under.
My DH was on scholarship for ROTC so he's currently active duty Army. We just passed the 4 year mark last year, with another 4 years to go in our commitment. Not sure if we'll continue after that but I've already told him that if we make it to 10 years, we're going to 20.
He's Medical Service - Medical Logistics so he's not involved in any sort of combat - more just support of combat. His jobs have ranged from organizing supplies, to planning medical training to working at the military hospital. There's actually a lot of support type jobs if you're not looking for combat positions.
What's it like?
I think in a lot of ways, it is what you make it. You really have to go in with a positive attitude and accept that a lot of things will be out of your control. I never thought in a million years I'd end up an Army wife but I've actually been pleasantly surprised by how much I actually like it. You have to just be ready for a bit of adventure and not stress over having so much of your life controlled by someone else - which can definitely be tough!
Do you have any say in where you go?
Yes and no. They do try to station you in a place that you request but it doesn't always work out that way. In our case, our first location wasn't even on our top 10 list but our second location was our number one choice. It does help to be proactive and stay in contact with those that assign you to where you want to go. They also post openings for jobs ahead of time so you can try to request a certain position at a certain post as well.
Are your husband's gone a lot?
Not to discourage you but yes, it's unfortunately part of the lifestyle. They are working to make the time between deployments longer but right now you can expect them to deploy about every other year. This last time we had 18 months between deployments and I thought that was pretty good. Plus you have to add in classes (anywhere from 2.5-6 mths) and regular training exercises. We figure my DH was gone about two months (3 week-long exercises and another month long one) just for training for the deployment itself.
Is it stressful?
You know, I don't really find it that stressful. My DH is deployed to Afghanistan right now and I just do my best not to worry about it. The reality is there is nothing I can do to change the circumstances he is in. You have to just trust in their training and remind yourself that this is what they're prepared to do. It also helps if you're pretty independent and willing to just go with the flow. There are definitely times when it's downright frustrating but the longer we're in the more I learn and the easier it gets.
Do they really "take care" of the family?
They definitely try to. Each company usually has a Family Readiness Group which helps to prepare families for deployments and provide support while the soldiers are deployed. They also try to provide job assistance (I haven't had much luck with that though haha), childcare options, extra pay, etc. There's definitely worse jobs you could have.
I know you mentioned paying off debt and I just want to say that thanks to Dave Ramsey and the military we've payed off a bunch of our student loan debt a lot faster than I know we would have otherwise. It's definitely been a benefit for us in that regard.
Anyway, hope that helps some! If you have any other questions, just let me know. We were all new to the military at one time and I definitely how crazy and frustrating it can be.