Starship Troopers

After the raid on the Skinnies planet that opened this book, Johnnie and company spend three weeks making suit repairs and practicing skills, as the ship heads for a Bug colony planet. One soldier makes a model of the Rodger Young, all the cap troopers sign it, and it’s presented to Captain Deladrier to thank her for the perfect drop and pickup at the Skinnies planet.

One corporal, Ace, is senior to Johnnie and has trouble taking orders from him. The only way to resolve the issue is hand-to-hand; Johnnie and Ace repair to a washroom, slug it out, and Johnnie loses. Ace pulls Johnnie to his feet, tells him to slug him in the face—Johnnie complies with a weak punch—and Ace flops to the floor, acting wounded and loudly conceding. He tells Johnnie there’ll be no more lip from him.

The war is going badly for the Federation. The Bugs can lose 1,000 soldiers and replace them within days from warmed-up reserve eggs. One reason Johnnie’s company is told to go easy on Skinnies civilians during attacks is that the Federation is working strenuously to pull those aliens to its side of the war. The Mobile Infantry learns from experience, and they begin focusing on Bug hives, dropping nerve gas into them. It’s very efficient, and reports from Skinnies operatives indicate that the Bugs hate it.

Sergeant Jelal is promoted to lieutenant, replacing Rasczak, and tradition dictates that the company receive a new moniker to fit. They settle on “Jelly’s Jaguars” but Jelal vetoes it. At the repair base on a safe, top-secret planet called Sanctuary, the troopers get 10 days of recuperation. The planet is similar to Earth except it has natural radiation levels much lower than Earth’s; consequently, its life forms have evolved only as far as primitive ferns and proto-insects. Thus, human settlers there likely will evolve more slowly than they would back on Earth and might therefore fall behind the rest of the Federation. 

Such issues are settled over thousands of years of evolutionary time; for now, the planet is a paradise, and Johnnie enjoys it. Half of the 1 million civilians there are female, as are 40% of Federal service personnel. There are plenty of ways to be entertained, especially in the main city of Espiritu Santo, and Johnnie, when on a date with a local lady, has a tendency to spend all his pay.

Ace suggests that Johnnie buck for promotion to sergeant and above: “you’ve got enough education to hit the selection exams for O.C.S. and you’ve got the I.Q. they like” (169). Johnnie ponders it. One drawback is that a career officer can’t vote because he’s still in the military. Thinking back, Johnnie has trouble recalling exactly why he joined up in the first place; it was something to do with the right to vote.

He remembers Colonel Dubois’ exhortation that true citizenship is about making one’s fellow humans more important than oneself. Johnnie isn’t sure he’s gung-ho about protecting humanity, but he definitely cares about the Mobile Infantry, which has become his family. He visits Lieutenant Jelal and requests assignment to a career track. The lieutenant swears him in, then pulls out acceptance papers, all filled in and ready for Johnnie to sign. 

During a layover on his way to OCS, brevet sergeant Johnnie bumps into his own father, Emilio, who’s now serving in the Mobile Infantry. They hug and cry, then sit and catch up. Emilio followed him into the service, survived training, and, at age 41, is a corporal—and, like Sergeant Zim, valued for his maturity among the younger men. Johnnie assumes his father signed up because his wife, Johnnie’s mother, was killed by the Bugs, but Emilio confesses that part of his initial anger toward Johnnie was that his own son had done what he had always wanted to do. He finagled a posting to the Rodger Young, hoping to get lucky and serve with his son, but Johnnie will be away for officer training.

OCS is harder than Basic Training and involves a great deal of highly technical schoolwork, with no time off on Sundays. Most instructors are amputees or otherwise disabled. Johnnie is weak in math; one of his bunk mates tutors him. Ensign Carmencita Ibañez visits OCS and wangles a three-hour pass for Johnnie so she can take him to dinner. She brings him the sad news that his friend Carl died when the Bugs attacked his research station on Pluto. Johnnie notices Carmen has shaved off her dark locks—hair is an impediment in a zero-gee cockpit—and still looks terrific. Carmen kisses him goodbye. OCS teaches History and Moral Philosophy, partly for Earth civilians and off-planet colonists who haven’t taken it in high school. Johnnie assumes it’ll be an easy break from math and science, but this version is serious, and his commission depends on how well he absorbs the material.

Johnnie learns that San Francisco and the San Joaquin Valley have been destroyed in a Bug attack, but in History and Moral Philosophy the news is ignored. The instructor, Major Reid, “a blind man with a disconcerting habit of looking straight at you and calling you by name” (186), asks whether a single prisoner unreleased by an enemy after a war justifies resuming the conflict. Johnnie hesitates, then asserts that one unreleased prisoner is enough to return to the fight. Reid orders him to prove it, in writing, by the next session.

Reid asks cadet Sally to explain how the present system evolved from the Disorders and the collapse of major governments. He replies that a few Scottish veterans took matters into their own hands: Their system of rough justice, along with the tension between veterans and civilians, evolved over a couple of generations into the present world government.

Reid asks Mr. Salomon to explain why only retired veterans can vote; Salomon answers that they are smarter. Reid cries, “Preposterous!” and points out that the “Revolt of the Scientists” failed because science doesn’t require social responsibility. Sally suggests that service personnel are “disciplined”; Reid rejects that because veterans have the same crime rate as civilians, and because most service personnel work behind the scenes and aren’t battle trained.

The students bat the ideas around for a while, but it becomes clear that, of all previous systems, from monarchy to anarchy, none worked very well. Only when the present system of governance, run by retired veterans, was established did the world settle down: “personal freedom for all is greatest in history, laws are few, taxes are low, living standards are as high as productivity permits, crime is at its lowest ebb” (192). The single variable that works, asserts Reid, is that veterans have demonstrated a willingness to risk their lives for others.

Reid next says that governance is the organized use of force, and that force requires responsibility. In older systems, voters could vote at no personal cost; this led to disasters. In the present system, voters have paid for their franchise by risking their lives to protect society. It’s a slight difference—all genders, races, and creeds are eligible—but a critical one: “This is why we make it so hard to enroll, so easy to resign” (195).

Johnnie must complete a paper on whether war can be abolished. He concludes that population pressures cause wars, and that any society that limits its population to preserve its resources will eventually be overrun by another society that doesn’t limit itself. Thus, wars may be inevitable.

As part of their training, cadets are billeted as temporary officers on ships going into action. Johnnie gets his call and reports, with three other cadets, to Commandant Nielssen, who briefs them from his wheelchair. They are to be third lieutenants, an imaginary rank that puts them nominally within the chain of command. They remain students and have no real authority except in battle. Colonel Nielssen warns them that they may be forced to assume command of larger units if their commanding officers are killed, and that badly mishandling that responsibility can get them cashiered or worse.

Nielssen suggests that one factor that can save a young officer during heavy combat is to consult his sergeant, who’s often older and battle-tested. Then the officer must make a quick decision and issue crisp commands. Johnnie and the other cadets receive their pips of office and go up to the roof to take shuttles to their ships. Johnnie shares a ride with Birdie, a cadet his age, battle tested and already the owner of a BS in math, a genius with common sense whom everyone thinks will become a general. Birdie ships out, but his pips return two weeks later with a Wounded Lion medal, awarded posthumously. 

Aboard the Tours, a medium-sized transport, Third Lieutenant Johnnie is privileged to dine with the other officers in the mixed-gender mess hall. Most of the Naval officers are women, including the captain; women dominate the pilot ranks. Dinners are formal, and the men seat the ladies.

Because of their camaraderie and pride—“Everybody works, everybody fights” (219)—the Mobile Infantry has the fewest officers of any military outfit, less than five percent. Many officers must perform double duty during the emergency: A general’s planning staffers, for example, also serve as team commanders. One reason for the shortage is that, in wartime, MI officers suffer the highest casualty rate.

MI Captain Blackstone gives Johnnie formal command of a platoon, though a sergeant is really in charge. Johnnie struggles with delegating authority, and Blackstone tells him he’s coming across as a tin soldier; Blackie orders Johnnie to act more relaxed. With math studies and extra duty, Johnnie is swamped: “For the next two weeks I was never so busy—not even in boot camp” (229). He tries to get everything done but falls behind and neglects sleep and exercise. Blackie orders him to cease studies and extra duties until the return voyage; Johnnie finally gets enough sleep.

Their destination is Planet P, a small, icy world with unhealthy air, a place developed by the Bugs as an advance staging site. The Navy could simply sterilize it from afar, but the Federation wants to capture members of the brain caste for interrogation. The Bugs similarly capture humans for study, but they express no interest in swapping prisoners; they might, however, swap for high caste members. The Federation’s goal is to invade the hives and obtain a few.

The surface already has been cleared, so cap troopers ride down in shuttles. Johnnie’s platoon assumes positions across 680 square miles; he coordinates with nearby platoons. Hive entrances are not to be closed off, in the hope that the warriors will emerge and waste themselves in surface battle; then the MI can climb down into the hives and retrieve high-caste members.

A corner beacon is missing; some squads fail to answer. Johnnie notices several armored suits lying on the ground. He learns from his sergeant that the corner beacon was destroyed by an unusually large Bug nuke. Johnnie orders guards around the hole. The sergeant wants a new corporal pulled back, but Johnnie would like him to get some experience and orders him kept in place; otherwise, he incorporates all the sergeant’s suggestions into his deployment orders.

Johnnie jets over to the blast crater; it’s much bigger and more radioactive than he expected. He pulls back the guard troopers and radios Captain Blackie, saying he wants to drop into the crater and inspect it for hive holes, but Blackie forbids it. Patrols become tedious; Johnnie varies the patterns to keep his men alert. A talented human, a “spatial senser,” arrives by shuttle and walks about, clad only in a uniform and oxygen mask. He wants no distractions, so Johnnie orders his patrols to drop and freeze. The senser wanders about, listening; an assistant quickly draws up a map and hands a 3D copy to Johnnie.

The map shows a main highway 1,000 feet down, with a Bug colony branching off and roads rising to within 100 feet of the surface. Johnnie redeploys his men to set up listening posts at points of interest; Blackie makes adjustments to Johnnie’s orders. Engineers will drill down and cut off the Bug highway at two places; after that, either the Bugs swarm out or the troopers go down in and engage them. Until then, half the men are on watch and half sleep.

After several hours, Johnnie’s men hear beneath them a sudden increase in activity. This is what they’ve been waiting for. Captain Blackie orders Johnnie’s platoon to retreat and observe; orbiting Navy vessels will attack the Bugs as they emerge en masse. The Bugs attack suddenly in several places. One onslaught boils up under Johnnie’s feet, and he falls into the hole but is quickly carried back to the surface on the bodies of the surging creatures. He realizes this outpouring is a feint that contains only peaceful workers. 

Thousands of worker Bugs spill out around Johnnie’s men. Scattered among them, though, are warriors who fire on the troopers. The men are under strict orders to refrain from entering the hives for the time being, but Platoon Sergeant Zim disappears down a Bug hole. Sergeant Brumby follows with a squad. A shock wave knocks Johnnie miles downwind. He recovers and orders his men to back off and mop up. He learns that two are killed, two injured, and two disabled.

Johnnie leads a team inside the hive to search for Zim. They spread out through the tunnels. Johnnie gets both missing sergeants on the radio: Brumby’s team is lost, while Zim is trapped and surrounded by Bugs. Zim wants Johnnie to leave him there and get out; Johnnie overrules him and begins the descent through the tunnels to locate him.

On the way, Johnnie’s men meet up with Brumby. Bugs attack out of nowhere; when the smoke clears, four troopers are dead, including Brumby. The squads continue to where Zim is trapped. He holds hostage a brain caste Bug; this prevents warrior Bugs from attacking. Johnnie’s team dispatches the warrior Bugs, but more Bugs descend from above, and the roof caves in, burying Johnnie.

He wakes up in sick bay on a transport ship; his injuries include broken ribs, a concussion, and radiation poisoning. Zim’s capture of the brain caste member has won the sergeant a promotion to First Lieutenant. Johnnie heals up, returns to Sanctuary, finishes his studies, and graduates. His first posting as a second lieutenant is to his old ship, the Rodger Young. 

Lieutenant Johnnie Rico inspects his troops as they prepare to drop onto Klendathu for a big battle to retrieve MI troopers imprisoned there. Johnnie’s platoon sergeant, his father, Emilio, assists as they load the men into their pods. Finally, Johnnie straps in and radios the skipper: “Bridge! Rico’s Roughnecks…ready for drop!” (278).

The Rodger Young is named for a US Army private who, during World War II in the Pacific, attacked and destroyed an enemy machine gun nest, dying in the process but saving his squad. Young was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.