The United States is perfectly willing to have a program that pays unskilled high school graduates with no family resources a good salary, houses them, sends them to college, and gives them physical and mental training—as long as there's an elevated chance of the youth in this program being killed or injured. My church recently had a young homeless guy come by and join the community for a bit before deciding that his only chance in life to get out of his situation was joining the army. I don't know if we'll see him again.

We have the money for all sorts of "socialist" programs like free college and a safety net for youth. But how, politically, do we make the decision to decouple it from inflicting violence on those youth?