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Comment by wehadfun | Hacker News Reader

I have mixed feelings about this. People say that state shouldn't have to pay for your kids, but the state can send your kids to war. If the state sends your kids to war and they get killed who reimburses the parent for $100K they invested in the kid?

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it looks like the default death benefit for the US Army serviceman or woman is $100K. http://myarmybenefits.us.army.mil/Home/Benefit_Library/Feder...

There were additional sums added for those who died in the Iraq War, with a range from 250K to 800K that varied depending upon the rank and dependent family members. http://articles.latimes.com/2003/apr/05/news/war-benefits5

There's much more than just the one-time death benefit. On top of that SGLI (servicemember group life insurance) has a maximum payout of $400,000 and surviving spouses get ongoing payments and other benefits as long as they remain unmarried.

>who reimburses the parent for $100K they invested in the kid?

The state pays death benefits.

Plus SGLI is around half a million dollars, last I knew. Plus ongoing payments to surviving spouses, I don't know about parents though. There's a small premium for SGLI though, around ~$300/year I think

Can the state currently send your kids to war? By this, I mean forcefully via a draft. I was under the impression that it's a no for now and for the foreseeable future.

Yes, they can. Every male between 18 and 25 is still required to register for the draft. The database is sitting there ready to go. The president just has to declare an emergency and convince congress to approve activation of the selective service system.

In practice, will they? Probably not. But weirder things have happened.

That's true, my comment was probably short-sighted. I received federal loans, so my name is in that database. Like you said, crazier things have happened.

Absolutely, under the right procedures. Just recently, women became required to register for selective service too, so everyone gets an equal shot now.

Every male has to register for the selective service (the draft) at 18 in the US allowing the government to draft you. If you got a student loan from the government in the US, you registered. You can't get federal loans without it.

Just because they can do it at any time doesn't mean they ever will. We have a large and expensive professional army and people reacted badly to the draft in 1960s I can only imagine what today's kids would do if they were drafted. It would be political suicide to enact a draft.

So technically yes the state can forcefully draft any male between 18-28 to go fight in a war. But practically no, it will never happen again.

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