reb mutche> we truly believe that by sitting and learning we are helping as much and even more … there is no way that a frum yid can join the army if he will not return from the army on the same level of ehrlichkait.
Can we examine this position? It seems to be coming from a very self-centered point of view: there is a country that does it’s own thing and then there is “us” who decide on what condition we will participate. Maybe let’s look at this as everyone is a citizen of an (imperfect, but democratic) country:
1) are you fulfilling your responsibility by choosing to ignore what the country needs? is this a yassachar/zevulun partnership when yassachar grabs money from zevulun rather than signs a contract? do you also exclude people fro your community who are not learning themselves or who are not learning
2) seems that you genuinely feel that you have responsibility but the risk is too high. This is important to show – as many of your opponents feel that the risks are just excuses and, thus, no meaningful dialog is possible. So, maybe you need to be proactive and actively go in the directions that minimize the risk: select jobs that are less risky – engineers, cyber, drivers … select people who can survive the risk (Steipler survived Russian army, there should be some people who are able to spend several months near non-religious mena and women)… provide training and support to these people who can guide and monitor the soldiers.