That is an excellent answer for secular people. But what should one reply to claims coming from religious people who argue that one can both serve three years and also study Torah in quantity and quality?

First of all, by all means, let them honor that and do it. In reality, in the overwhelming majority of cases, that simply does not happen (just as, as is well known, the overwhelming majority of hesder students do not really study seriously throughout their lives). But if there is an exceptional person who is certain he can serve three years in the army itself and still study in a good and thorough way, then fine.
But even if we are talking about an exceptional person, I do not understand why one should do that in the first place. Why should that exceptional person contribute ten years of service—three years in the army plus years of high-quality study—instead of contributing five years to the state, when a regular soldier contributes only three? Again, these are feelings of inferiority that I really do not understand. Why are explanations needed at all, whether for religious people or for secular people? Let the secular people explain why they serve only three years. I truly do not understand.

I struggled with this a lot, and I understand the questioner.
I eventually came to a clear conclusion:
From our side, there is good justification for shortening the service, and one should not feel inferior—and this is where the Rabbi’s explanation comes in (you can perhaps argue with it, but it seems that you agree).
From the secular side, in my opinion, the explanation does not work at all, but here there is an important point.
A person lives according to his worldview—that is, that Torah scholars are needed, and without hesder there would be much less Torah study, both in quantity and quality—and he does not need to take other approaches into account when it concerns him.
In other words: just because secular people are blind to the value of Torah, should I act differently from what the Jewish people truly need?
When you get to the army, you will see that many times your secular friends will clean the sleeping quarters while you are praying Shacharit, and so on.
Should you give up prayer because your secular friends do not understand its value? Or even shorten it? Of course not.
You can understand the secular people’s anger about the matter, but that should not affect your path or your confidence in your path in the slightest.

Exactly. There are many who will not understand the value of an education NCO, a kashrut supervisor, the army canteen, military bands, Army Radio, or anti-aircraft missiles. Society decides what it considers important, and that is relevant service. Within that framework, each person does the best he can according to his abilities and understanding. There is absolutely no reason in the world for me to behave according to someone else’s values, and I do not owe him any explanations either. I will give him explanations that describe my worldview, but there is no need at all to give him explanations that would satisfy him according to his own worldview.
By the way, the same is true regarding state budgets as well—for culture, sports, yeshivot, and so on.

At first glance, it does not seem right to bring such considerations into dividing a shared burden… Is it fair that when the poor Chinese man and his partner have three coins jointly with another person, he should buy a slice for each of them and a flower with the third—when his partner does not like flowers?

The case of cleaning during prayer is unavoidable, but indeed, if that bothers people and it is feasible, it would be fairer to divide things so that while one is praying the other cleans, and afterward the first cleans while the second does his own things…
There are many things that are needed in order for the shared system to function—such as anti-aircraft missiles, providing religious needs so that everyone can serve, and even a bit of entertainment… Here there is a need for decision-making… that turns it into a need of everyone (military service at Army Radio really is absurd)…

But what does that have to do with one person’s “purpose in life”?
When a large part of society—and even a majority—does not share that same “purpose in life,” it is not fair to include it in the considerations for dividing the burden…

If it is something existential, I can understand that there is a clash between values and what will result from dividing the burden, and there is room for discussion… but it is indeed a situation that contains a certain injustice… (for example, girls’ service, if indeed the service of religious girls would make it possible to shorten service for others)…
But I do not agree with the conclusion, “why should he serve”… It is a fairer division when on the other side there stands a person who does not share the same goal.

I am not an exceptional person and nowhere near one, but I can say with certainty that although I served three full years (+ several years of career service), from age eighteen until now I have studied many times more Torah, in both quantity and quality, than the vast majority of hesder students. Our values are the same, but I have one additional value: trying not to implement my values at other people’s expense. If everyone served the same amount of time, service could be shortened for everyone (I’m sure you’ll argue with that…). And if you are praying while your friends are cleaning your room, in my eyes that is ugly..

To Meni
Rest easy. You do not have any additional value. No one is implementing his values at other people’s expense. The amount of time hesder students serve will not increase or decrease the number of years anyone else serves. No one wants everyone to go into hesder, only an elite group (which meanwhile still has not happened). Even if the number of soldiers in the army doubled, they would not shorten the length of service, because unfortunately the army leadership sees soldiers as “manpower” and a “resource,” and they will not be willing to give up resources regardless of the army’s actual needs. And no one is forcing your friends to clean the room while you pray. You can get up before them and go to sleep before them. And maybe if they also prayed, they would be better-educated people and would not need to clean the room every day (and certainly not the toilets…..)

It is simply unbelievable, this mentality of creating work that is not needed and then forcing other people to do it…

To Yitzhak, Meni, and Ailon.
You simply did not grasp the point, and I am very surprised.
I am talking about a situation in which the prayer necessarily comes at the time of camp cleaning and the like (there are quite a few such cases in the army). Even if for Shacharit one can get up early, for Mincha and Ma’ariv that is often not possible, and while you are praying they will tell the secular soldiers to clean, or run, and so on.
Anyone who in such a situation would give up prayer because the secular person does not understand its value is by no means a Torah person.
Now for the analogy to hesder.
The assumption is (one can perhaps argue about it, but it seems the questioner agreed) that without hesder there would be fewer Torah students, in both quantity and quality, significantly so. And there is no need for additional soldiers.
If all the citizens were religious, hesder would remain as it is (because everyone would understand the importance), so now that not everyone is religious, it makes no sense to do the opposite of what the Jewish people need just because the other person is blind to it.

To R.
You are mistaken. The Rabbi’s words to the questioner are known and straightforward (at least to me) from long before now and do not really need further explanation. People who ask this type of question usually just have the ordinary inferiority feelings that religious people have toward secular people. I would also add that in the current routine military reality there is not even supposedly more of a moral claim on the secular side, even by its own standards. In your example of prayer times—if, let us say, we were in nonstop fighting day and night (in which case one is only obligated in a short prayer), then at least—even if we were to assume that despite that there were still a commandment to pray a long prayer—one could understand, even if not agree with, the other side. Shared life in any society includes a kind of agreement among the participants regarding division of the burden. And each side has different emphases regarding what that burden is. And each side understands that it has to pay something of its own in order to participate. Secular people are willing to pay the cost of prayer times and kosher food and so on in order for religious people to be in the army. And in the government they are willing to pay the cost of maintaining hesder in order for the religious public to sit in it, and that is fine. The reason we supposedly pay nothing is that secular people have almost no special demands beyond what religious people also see as a necessity. Secular people, for example, care about all sorts of silly ceremonies, and religious people do indeed participate in them (if they are not against Jewish law). And that comes from the fact that we understand that it is important to them. But in the army there is a huge amount of wasted time in routine service, and the fear that soldiers might sit around for even a minute with nothing to do has nothing to do with any value important to the secular public. And although in principle, even if we worshiped the Flying Spaghetti Monster and had to play pick-up sticks for half an hour every morning in its honor (and this really mattered to us), then even according to the rules of partnership they would have to make room for that half hour—in practice that would not happen. And there is a deep reason for that: in some hidden way, when people participate together they respect one another even if they do not understand everything the other side does, and in their subconscious there is respect for those things as well. The secular public has respect for Torah somewhere hidden in its consciousness, and the religious public probably also has some respect for secular ceremonies and understands that they answer some need in reality. Therefore there is a limit to these things. If the Haredim demanded a ritual bath in the morning and three hours for a daily class and an evening study session and the kosher standards of each one’s own little niche, the army would give up on having them unless they were super-combat soldiers. And they are not. And the feeling is that there is some connection between these two phenomena (the abundance of demands on the one hand, and the inadequate output on the other).

To Ailon.
I truly did not understand what your response had to do with what I wrote.
All I said was that your analogy to prayer was not mine.
I was speaking about a situation in which the matter necessarily comes at the other person’s expense.

It is not complicated. The claim is that there is a connection between what happens in a situation where it necessarily comes at the other person’s expense, and a situation where it does not. A relation of, let us say, kernel and shell. And I answered Meni on his own terms (the shell). That is, my feeling is, in his example of prayer for instance, that if the secular people lived with a high level of pressure about using time efficiently, I assume they would somehow respect the religious demands in that area more, not less, as it seems would happen.

Ahhh, what a pleasure it is to watch these smug hesder students justify themselves with dishonest sophistry. A person sees every blemish except his own. If only you at least kissed the feet of those who do full service and apologized that you do not have the strength to stand up to it, we would not be angry—but to be proud and think you are an elite? Get over yourselves, spoiled pleasure-seekers.