“Part of my wife’s chiloni cousins objections is that Chareidim live at home, are free to come and go”
If they are secular israeli ashkenazim, you need not respond. They know the truth better than you do. (As once when I had a store debate with a middle aged ponytail leftist type and I demolished his accusations, his reply was a positive grunt.)
At most demand of them: how is it when there is war, everyone is together and talk of yeshiva draft stops?
e.g. during the Yom Kippur war when some bochrim offered to join the army, they were told to go back and learn and daven for them.
If they are sephardim (or american olim) it is indeed hard. In their simplicity they are/were “robbed and killed” for a leadership whose end goals were diamentrically opposed to what they themselves gave their life and limb for.
An analogy would be Boxer in Orwell’s Animal Farm