Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Starship Troopers, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Militarism
Citizenship
Moral Decline and Discipline
Communism vs. Moral Individualism
Summary
Analysis
Johnnie remembers how he thought of himself as a trained soldier until he reported to his ship. During his training, the Terran Federation had moved from peace to a “state of emergency” and then to war, although Johnnie was too concerned about the details of training to notice. “Peace” is when civilians don’t notice military causalities unless they happen to know the soldiers; Johnnie doesn’t know of any period in history when there was no fighting happening.
Basic training was hard, designed to separate soldiers from civilians, but Johnnie hasn’t experienced real battle yet. The charges against Hendrick in Chapter 5—which cited the Terran Federation’s “state of emergency”—provided a hint of the impending war, although Johnnie was too occupied with his daily reality to notice. After his training, Johnnie has begun to embody the military’s dismissive attitudes towards the civilians they protect; his comments that “peace” is when they are unaware of conflict suggests that, unlike soldiers, civilians would rather avoid dealing with painful facts.
Themes
When Johnnie reports to the Valley Forge and his company, “Willie’s Wildcats,” the fighting in what would turn into the “Bug War” had been going on for a few years. Its official start is just after Johnnie joins his company; everything before that was called “incidents, patrols, or police actions.” Soldiers don’t notice wars much more than civilians do, at least generally. They are usually more concerned with the little details of their daily lives.
Johnnie’s first ship, the Valley Forge, is named after the place where General George Washington camped during the Revolutionary War and where he and his officers transformed the rag-tag Continental Army into the professional force that would ultimately defeat the British. Johnnie’s first missions—which also turn him from a trained recruit into a professional soldier—happen with the Wildcats on this appropriately-named ship.
Themes
When Johnnie, Kitten Smith, and Al Jenkins report to their unit, however, all of Willie’s Wildcats turn out to be battle-tested, with at least one combat drop apiece. Still, Johnnie isn’t hazed for his lack of experience. The sergeants and corporals are nicer than in training, although Johnnie eventually realizes this is because he is a “nobody” who won’t earn his spot in the Wildcats until he makes a drop.
The camaraderie among the men is a defining feature of the M.I. Like the soldiers who were too afraid to drop, the new privates are treated kindly but held at a distance until they can prove that they are dependable in action. In basic training, Johnnie was doing well when he didn’t draw the attention—and discipline—of his instructors, but in the adult world of war, he’s not yet worthy of attention. He can only become “somebody” by proving himself in battle.
Themes
Johnnie is very inexperienced. He admires his section leader’s gold earring—a skull with small bone charms hanging from it—but the sergeant explains that he can’t buy one on Luna base. When they get somewhere where he could, he promises to let Johnnie know about it. Johnnie soon learns how unreasonably expensive they are for such small trinkets.
Johnnie doesn’t understand that the earrings are a way that the soldiers can quietly flaunt their experience. Because he’s still on the threshold between civilian life and proving himself as a soldier, his first response to the earrings is aesthetic—he thinks they’re pretty and would like one for himself. His casual appreciation of jewelry pushes lightly against mid-20th-century gender norms, in another example of what an advanced human society would and would not worry about.
Themes
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The First Battle of Klendathu, or “Operation Bughouse,” takes place shortly after the Bugs destroy Buenos Aires. The loss of a major city makes “groundhog” civilians realize what is happening, and they demand that the military surround and protect the planet. Defense, Johnnie knows, has never won a war, but civilians’ standard response is to cry for defense as soon as they notice that war is happening. Then they want to run it, even though they have no experience.
Although civilians generally don’t bother themselves with attending to military casualties, they overreact to an attack directed against them. In addition to the belittling of civilians as “groundhogs,” implying a lack of intelligence and an inclination for hiding rather than defense, Johnnie’s remarks support the Federation’s argument for the validity of its militarized government. Civilians are too concerned with their immediate safety and suffering to understand the necessities of war or how to protect the group.
Themes
It would have been impossible to bring all troops back to Terra given the Federation’s treaty obligations, and the military is also busy mounting an attack on Klendathu, the Bugs’ home world. Johnnie feels vaguely bad, but he is so busy preparing for the attack that Buenos Aires feels very far away and unimportant. He is wrong; this loss will mean a great deal to him, but he doesn’t know it yet.
Despite civilian interference, the Federation takes the war to the Bugs—enacting the vision of the soldier and the army as the shield between home and the enemy. Johnnie’s disconnection from the tragedy of Buenos Aires arises from the soldier’s preoccupation with his own small piece of the war, but it also raises the question of how a group of people so distant from the lives of the civilian majority can best attain that majority’s interests.
Themes
Johnnie’s first combat drop is under PFC Dutch Bamburger. The operation should have been called “Madhouse” instead of “Bughouse,” because everything went wrong. Federation troops are supposed to end the war by occupying the capital and key cities. It’s possible that General Diennes, who commands the operation, had asked for more troops than he got—but the planning isn’t Johnnie’s business. The General drops with the troops, commands them on the ground, and leads the diversion that allowed for some of the infantry—including Johnnie—to be retrieved. He loses his life in the battle.
The Terran Federation isn’t perfect, and Johnnie’s first operation is marred by tactical missteps. Johnnie suggests that people other than General Diennes—maybe other military leadership, maybe the civilians who wanted as many soldiers as possible protecting Earth—could be responsible. Despite the tactical mess, the General still earns Johnnie’s praise for being a good soldier: he didn’t ask his men to do any work that he wouldn’t do, and he died saving the lives of the men he commanded.
Themes
Johnnie answers “armchair strategists” who claim that the Federation should have blanketed Klendathu with atomic weapons by pointing out that the Bugs, properly called Pseudo-Arachnids, share a hive mind. Destroying the surface wouldn’t have killed the queens or the “brain caste” which live below ground. The Bugs would still have had colonies, ships, allies, and intact leadership, allowing them to continue the war instead of surrender.
Johnnie’s address to “armchair strategists” again points towards clueless civilians. By contrast, he himself understands enough about the situation to assess the Federation’s response. Specifically, the social hierarchy and biology of the Arachnids limits the utility of conventional warfare. The Arachnids’ resilience also relates to the book’s argument about violence as a force of history: they won’t stop being a threat to the Federation until they surrender.
Themes
Johnnie isn’t even sure that the Bugs can surrender. The workers can’t fight, and the soldiers can’t surrender. The Bug warriors are “smart, skilled, and aggressive.” And hard to fight: a soldier can burn off any number of a warrior’s legs, and as long as he can move, he’ll keep coming; the only way to kill the Bug warriors is to hit their “nerve case.”
The Arachnids may be incapable of surrender since their social organization allows a small number of “brains” to telepathically control bands of warriors. The warriors keep going in the face of tremendous physical damage, which raises a question about their individuality. According to Johnnie’s understanding, the only way to stop a warrior Bug is to cut its communication with its controlling “brain.”
Themes
Flashing back to that day, the operation is a mess. Fifty ships are supposed to fall into orbit in perfect coordination and begin dropping troops. By the time Johnnie’s capsule lands on the surface, the Valley Forge has been destroyed—along with half the Wildcats—after ramming into another ship. Johnnie spends a nightmarish 18 hours on Klendathu. Because he’s always been afraid of spiders, his first sight of the Bugs terrifies him. But the infantry is in better shape than the K9 Corps. The neodogs are so scared by the Bugs that many of them “suicide” as soon as they land. The Corps must now train its dogs to be unafraid of the bugs.
In contrast to the Arachnids’ perfect coordination, the Federation forces must contend with human error and a battle plan that sacrifices safety for an overwhelming show of force. Johnnie’s shakes (Chapter 1) come into better focus when he reveals that he lost friends and comrades in the collision between his ship and another. Moreover, basic training gave Johnnie discipline, but it can’t overcome his instinctive horror of the Arachnids. Unlike the Arachnids themselves, controlled by distant brains, or neodogs that can be bred to be resilient, Johnnie must come to terms with his fear on his own.
Themes
Johnnie sticks close to Dutch and eventually learns how to kill a Bug without wasting his ammo, although he can’t yet tell the difference between a worker and a warrior. The Bugs’ weapons are lighter than the M.I.’s, but they are still lethal. Because they are controlled by a hive mind, they cooperate better than humans. And, because the “brain that is doing the heavy thinking for a ‘squad’” is hidden below the surface, the soldiers can’t reach it.
Apart from operational differences—hive mind vs. independent humans banded together in a unit—the Federation soldiers and the Arachnid warriors are well-matched in terms of firepower. The Arachnids’ advantage lies in the imperviousness of their “brain” creatures to harm. In contrast, the Federation force survives only through the sacrifice of the General leading the mission.
Themes
The goal of the operation is to establish a beachhead and hold it until reinforcements and heavier units arrive to pacify the planet. Johnnie’s section landed in the wrong place and their platoon leader and sergeant have died, but it still occupies and holds an area. They wait for reinforcements which never arrive because they’ve landed in another spot.
The individual ingenuity of the human soldiers, together with their extensive training, allows them to make the best of the botched situation. Despite having landed in the wrong area and having lost their leadership, Johnnie, Dutch, and the rest of the section are still able to carry out the mission they’ve been given.
Themes
When Johnnie and Dutch respond to a call for help from their mates, a Bug pops up through a hole in the ground and shoots Dutch. After killing it, Johnnie tries to remove Dutch’s helmet, but his whole decapitated head comes with it. As an all-hands call sounds in his helmet, Johnnie leaves the body without even salvaging ammunition and heads for the nearest beacon. The battle is officially called a “strategic victory,” but Johnnie was there and knows that the Federation took a terrible loss.
Johnnie’s lack of foresight—he fails to collect Dutch’s ammunition—signals his inexperience, but his instinctive reaction to flame the bug, inculcated by his training, keeps him alive. He once again situates himself as a reliable and relatable narrator when he acknowledges that the operation was a mess, even though the official statement tries to avoid that admission.
Themes
Six weeks later, Johnnie and Al Jenkins report to Sergeant Jelal on the Roger Young. Both wear gold skull earrings with one bone. Kitten died in the tube on the Valley Forge while waiting to be dropped. Because fewer than 20% of the Wildcats were left after the operation, the survivors were distributed around the Fleet.
Johnnie has learned the value of the gold skull earrings, and it’s steep. His training saved him on the planet, but the catastrophic loss of Wildcats proves that training can only do so much. Johnnie’s new ship is named after a famous soldier. Roger Young was born in Ohio in the early 20th century, and he passed the National Guard’s entrance exams despite a childhood injury that left him nearly deaf and blind. He served in the Pacific during World War II and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for drawing enemy fire and allowing his company to safely retreat from a Japanese unit. He thus exemplifies the civic virtue and bravery that motivates the ideal soldier—the soldier Johnnie must become—because he quite literally placed his body between his comrades and the enemy.
Themes
Jelal and Lieutenant Rasczak greet Johnnie and Jenkins warmly. They soon abandon their earrings because in Rasczak’s Roughnecks, being a member of the “family” is more important that the amount of drop experience a trooper has. The Roughnecks welcome Johnnie and Jenkins as combat veterans but remain somewhat formal until they’ve proved themselves in their new platoon. But within a week, a shared combat drop has made them full members of the Roughneck family.
Johnnie briefly enjoyed using his skull earring to broadcast his status as a drop veteran. The Roughnecks, however, are a meritocratic platoon, meaning that character is more important than rank (recall how friendly Jelly is with the men) and virtue rests in actions rather than displays. They thus live up to the ideal of civic virtue represented by Roger Young himself.
Themes
When he is off duty, the soldiers could call Sergeant Jelal “Jelly,” but Rasczak is always “The Lieutenant.” He is like a god to the men, and Jelly is his prophet. He also acts like a father who loves and protects his men and would never abandon them. Jelly mothers the Roughnecks without spoiling them. The platoon is disciplined, but close. When Johnnie talks back to his squad leader, “Red” Greene, Greene privately sets him straight with a “medium set of lumps,” but later recommends him for promotion.
Although Johnnie’s family hasn’t supported his military career, he now has new “parents” in Rasczak and Jelly. When Green sets him straight with a bit of unofficial corporal punishment—the “medium set of lumps” or bruises he gives Johnnie—his actions reiterate the importance of physical punishment as a form of care, even love. Correction is for those who are worth the effort of teaching, and it’s a responsibility that senior members of the family have towards the young and less mature.
Themes
Lieutenant Rasczak and Captain Deladrier run a tight ship. The Navy and the Infantry keep to their own parts of the ship. The Roger Young was a co-ed ship and “ladies’ country” lies beyond bulkhead 30. Two armed M.I. guard their door at all times. Guard duty is a privilege because it carries the possibility of seeing a “feminine creature.”
While Johnnie respects Captain Deladrier for her piloting and her command of the Roger Young, his attitude towards the rest of the female navy sailors betrays his somewhat sexist views of women. The best job is the one that brings the cap troopers closest to women, who have become so exotic to Johnnie during his time in gender-segregated training and service that he thinks of them as “creatures” instead of “people.”
Themes
Johnnie’s shipboard job is servicing electronic equipment under Migliaccio, who is also the chaplain and the first section leader. The second section leader, Johnson, is the first cook. The M.I. rule is that everyone fights, and everyone works.
When the cap troopers are aboard ship, they all have jobs, because in the M.I., everyone fights and everyone drops. Johnnie and Migliaccio check and repair the soldiers’ suits. Migliaccio, the chaplain, is therefore responsible for the platoon’s bodies as well as their souls. Associating Johnnie with such an important task foreshadows the protective roles he’ll take on as he continues his military career.
Themes
Johnnie works and makes several drops, all of which are different so that the enemy couldn’t predict them. These are patrols and raids rather than pitched battles. The Federation lost so many ships and men in Operation Bughouse that they must scale back operations and rebuild their force. But small, fast ships like the Roger Young continue to speed around, poking at the enemy. Johnnie is happy with his life in the Roughnecks, until the Lieutenant dies.
Operation Bughouse cost more resources than the military expected, and they must rebuild their force. Although Johnnie has previously characterized civilians as “groundhogs” for their unwillingness to face danger, it also seems that the ongoing action serves not only to keep the Bugs on their toes but to appease the civilians back home without letting them know the true losses. Despite catastrophe, the M.I. continues to lay its collective body between its beloved home and the enemy.
Themes
The time after the Lieutenant dies is the worst in Johnnie’s life. He had already received a letter from his Aunt Eleanora informing him that his Mother had died in the attack on Buenos Aires. Johnnie assumes that his Father must also have died. He will later learn that although Mr. Rico had intended to go, last minute business had detained him. In light of his loss, Lieutenant Rasczak offers Johnnie an opportunity to take some leave, but he declines.
Very belatedly, Johnnie learns about the death of his Mother and, he assumes, his Father with her. He’s already bonded with Jelly and Rasczak as alternate parents, so while he’s distressed to discover that he is (presumably) an orphan, he elects to remain with his Roughneck family rather than take time to grieve his losses.
Themes
On the Roughnecks’ next mission, a man in the third squad is wounded, and his assistant section leader gets hurt trying to make the pickup. The Lieutenant picks up both and carries them back to the retrieval boat, but he is killed just before he can board. Maybe Johnnie was the wounded man, but he won’t say, because it doesn’t matter. The Roughnecks have lost their father. Jelly keeps the team from falling apart by keeping the Lieutenant’s structure intact and maintaining the fiction that the Lieutenant was “merely out of sight.”
Johnnie’s claim that it doesn’t matter who the wounded private was, because picking up one man was the same as picking up the entire platoon, speaks to the sense of common identity among the Roughnecks and the M.I. But even at their closest, the humans are still protected from total annihilation by their individualism; if a Bug unit’s “brain” was killed, they would cease to function, unlike the Roughnecks.
Themes
