Originally Posted by analog

I think a point that's been ignored is that the military owns your ass and can say you died however they please.

People die in the armed services all the time for stupid shit, but families are given a nice, easy to digest story to put their minds at ease. No one gets a letter from the military saying, "we're sorry, but your son fell asleep under a truck and was run over" or "your daughter went to sleep at the base of a sand dune and didn't mark herself off, and a convoy ran her over in the dark". These types of things happen with some frequency.

The military makes humans into machines of war. Those machines cost money. The offset of the cost is owning the rights to your life in whatever way it suits them. Plain and simple.