I am a reservist in a country that has such a high risk of Russian invasion that defense leaders have stopped all non-essential spending in favor of hoarding as much artillery and rockets as they can for when the time comes. I do not have a suitcase packed and I do not intend to flee anywhere.

And people here are taught since childhood that this not about being an useful little soldier for the government, but an essential duty to your friends and family, because when the situation gets tough, there won't be anyone else to protect them. A huge professional military that can come to your rescue - like the US Army - is a luxury that most people in the world don't have.

So because you don’t need the freedom to not volunteer others shouldn’t have it either? The issue pertains to pressganging which of course does not apply to volunteers.

I don’t agree with the framing again, but again I don’t think I’ll be changing anyone’s mind here.

As with Uvalde, I believe that the choice to maximize own wellbeing at the expense of others will often lead to worse outcome for all.

Vaccines are a good example of this. Everyone is better off when they take a personal risk to eradicate polio from the entire group. In the process, some people will suffer side-effects ranging from allergic reaction to even death in the worst case, but that is the sacrifice that needs to be made. Unfortunately, modern imbalance towards individualism has produced a generation of parents who cannot tolerate any risk, choose the selfish option and leave their children unvaccinated, leading to re-emergence of old infectious diseases that kill and maim more children than the universal vaccination would.

Individual and collective interests need to be fairly balanced, and Ukraine has done that by preferring older conscripts over younger ones, but you will never find enough volunteers for any truly shitty situation that requires more people than the tiny fraction of natural-born risk-takers who fill the ranks of firefighters and other dangerous professions.