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
Sometime later, the Roger Young returns to base for more capsules and replacements. Al Jenkins and Migliaccio have died, and Johnnie is going to OCS. While he’s at the quarantine desk, another soldier approaches to ask if the boat he came from belongs to the Roger Young. Johnnie turns around and recognizes his Father, now a corporal. They embrace each other, making a spectacle with their joyful tears. Johnnie’s Father is shipping out on the Rog.
Even as Johnnie continues to grow and mature, military life continues on as it always has: with suffering and loss. The surprise reappearance of Mr. Rico—and as a soldier himself—just after Johnnie has made a commitment to a full military career seems like a universal mark of approval on his choice. He’s no longer divided between the civilian and military worlds, and all of his family, both biological and military, is now encompassed by the Mobile Infantry.
Themes
Johnnie and his Father are like “ships passing in the night” because of OCS. His Father bursts into tears when reading his orders for school, not from sadness for their continued separation, but from pride. Johnnie hopes he’ll be re-assigned to the Roughnecks after OCS, but there’s no guarantee. However, he’s happy knowing that his mates will take good care of his Father.
An earlier version of Mr. Rico tried to dissuade Johnnie from volunteering, but this new, militarized version cries proud tears to learn that his son is going to Officer Candidate School. “Ships passing in the night” is a reference to an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and hints that Johnnie is not just a killing machine, but that he’s also a well-read and cultured person.
Themes
Johnnie’s Father volunteered a little more than a year ago and is already a corporal—an honor he dismisses by saying that promotions are happening quickly during the war. He wanted to be an infantry man. He’s only in his 40s, and age has its own advantages. Johnnie knows that the Army needs mature men as non-coms. He doesn’t need to ask why his Father wanted M.I.; he just feels flattered.
Although he downplays his swift promotions, Mr. Rico was promoted from private to corporal during his first assignment after basic training. Like his son, he has the character and virtue of a soldier. His success in basic training and in the M.I. contrasts with Carruthers, the “geezer” recruit at Camp Currie whose age resulted in injuries.
Themes
Johnnie’s Father did basic training at Camp San Martin. His training was compressed because of the war. His first assignment was to McSlatery’s Volunteers, an outfit with a reputation almost as good as the Roughnecks. He was promoted to corporal when the Volunteers dropped on Sheol, but they lost so many men that few survivors were reassigned. This time, his request for the Roger Young was honored.
Like Johnnie, Mr. Rico quickly became a military “orphan” when his platoon was decimated in action, offering a reminder of the brutality and danger of service, especially during the ongoing war. The abbreviation of basic training and the catastrophic loss of soldiers, leading to swift promotions and reassignments, are used to explain how Mr. Rico could have volunteered after Johnnie yet caught up to him in this moment.
Themes
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Johnnie asks when his Father joined up and learns that it was shortly after his Mother’s death in Buenos Aires. But his father says that it had less to do with that and more to do with his sense that Johnnie had done what he himself should have done. When Johnnie volunteered, his Father had realized through hypnotherapy that he was unfulfilled and dissatisfied.
Mr. Rico ultimately volunteered to answer the urging of his own latent sense of civic virtue, a trait he shares with his son. But only Johnnie was brave enough to follow that call when he was 18. Mr. Rico even hints that his own dissatisfaction with the path he’d chosen lay underneath his efforts to dissuade Johnnie.
Themes
Johnnie’s Father felt better as the war began brewing because he was busy. But after basic training, he understood his discontent better. It was clarified in a conversation with a friend who couldn’t imagine the impact the war would have on civilians. After Buenos Aires, Mr. Rico did what he “had to do:” he turned the business over to an associate, put its stock into a trust, and volunteered. He wanted to prove that he was a man, not a mere economic animal. Johnnie and his Father hear the call for the Roger Young, and they embrace in farewell.
Earlier in the book, Mr. Rico was the voice of the citizens, but now that he’s a soldier, he shares Johnnie’s contempt for them. Mr. Rico’s anecdote contextualizes Johnnie’s “groundhog” comment (Chapter 10), because it illustrates how little civilians understand the danger of being alive in a universe where only the fittest individuals or societies survive. And once again, the conclusion of Mr. Rico’s history of volunteering emphasizes the innate capacity for civic virtue he always had and that made him feel frustrated and discontent while he tried to ignore it.
Themes
Johnnie reports to his OCS Fleet Sergeant, who asks why it took him so long to show up. Johnnie’s excuse about his Father is a new one. The Sergeant declines to verify it. The word of cadet-officers is accepted—but they’re kicked out if it turns out they’ve lied.
As a cadet, Johnnie is changing places in the military hierarchy. To get into OCS requires both intelligence and education (passing the entrance exams) and demonstrating excellence as a soldier (and he’s recently been promoted to sergeant). Having demonstrated his civic virtue has earned him some benefit of the doubt from his instructors, although he will still need to work hard to be successful.
Themes
Mornings at OCS are like basic training. In the afternoons, the cadets attend lectures on many subjects. The primary lesson is how to keep track of 50 other men while still being a “one man catastrophe.” Every four cadets share a civilian servant, who gives them more time for training and studying by taking care of minor tasks. The work is hard, but Johnnie’s too busy to be unhappy. He only worries about flunking math.
In basic training, Johnnie fretted over the discovery that Captain Frankel worked at least as hard as—if not harder than —the recruits. He’s working harder than ever in Officer Training School, but the curriculum also proves that the basic tasks of soldiering, at least in the M.I., don’t change at any rank.
Themes
Most of the instructors are disabled combat veterans and Johnnie eventually stops wondering why they opted to teach instead of accepting medical retirements.
If Johnnie needed yet another reminder that war is brutal—and that serving in the M.I is dangerous even during times of “peace”—the number of disabled combat veterans provides it. It also speaks to the camaraderie soldiers feel, because these men elect to teach rather than accepting honorable discharges and living out their days as civilians.
Themes
The high point of OCS is when Johnnie receives a visit from Ensign Carmen Ibañez. She appears in the mess, looking beautiful in her dress uniform, and asks the duty officer to let her take Johnnie to dinner. The meal—and the prestige Johnnie gets from his association with a beautiful woman—are worth flunking two classes the following day. Carmen and Johnnie mourn the loss of Carl, who died when the Bugs attacked the Pluto research station. Even though she’s shaved her hair off, Johnnie still thinks Carmen is cute.
Yet again, Carmen’s individual capabilities—she seems to be rising through the ranks of the Navy as fast as Johnnie is in the Army—take second place to her physical beauty in Johnnie’s perspective of the world. His reputation improves from his association with a beautiful woman, not because she’s pilot material. Carl’s death is also a reminder of the potentially huge sacrifice made by soldiers; unlike Johnnie, he wasn’t on the front lines, but he wasn’t safe.
Themes
Cadets must take History and Moral Philosophy class. History and Moral Philosophy isn’t about how to fight, but about why, and Johnnie thinks that anyone who is in OCS should have already figured that out. He assumes it must be for cadets from colonies where it wasn’t required in high school. Because he’s already had it, he thinks it’ll be an easy course, even though he must pass it this time. And failure means a cadet may even be kicked out of the military altogether.
History and Moral Philosophy makes a comeback in OCS, and Johnnie struggles to understand why: everyone should have had it in high school, and anyone who’s made it this far should already understand why he fights. In terms of the book’s various arguments, History and Moral Philosophy at this point serves much the same purpose as before, providing space to elaborate and explore the theories that underpin the plot.
Themes
The class works like a “time bomb”—Johnnie often wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about what was said in class. Likewise, it wasn’t until after he'd decided to fight that Johnnie understood that Mr. Dubois had been trying to teach him why to fight. Why is a legitimate question: the pay is terrible, and the conditions are harsh.
Johnnie’s experience thus far—where events during his training and service would cause him to think back to the lessons Mr. Dubois was trying to teach him in History and Moral Philosophy—has already demonstrated the class’s “time bomb” capabilities. It also helps Johnnie to understand his own motivations, because the military glorification of the novel rests on understanding and depicting what it is that inspires men to put up with terror and pain for the greater good.
Themes
The History and Moral Philosophy instructor, Major Reid, is blind. On the day that the Bugs destroy San Francisco and the San Joaquin Valley, the class discusses the events after the war between the Chinese Hegemony and the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance. Reid ignores the current attack and has the students discuss the “negotiated treaty of New Delhi,” which ignored prisoners of war when the armistice turned into a stalemate. Around 65,000 Alliance prisoners—including civilians—languished in the enemy’s hands while the Hegemony prisoners were released to return home if they wished.
Major Reid’s physical blindness contrasts with the clarity of his moral insight, a point driven home by his apparent ability to “see” the cadets. Comparing the invented late-20th-century “history” to the book’s Cold War backdrop provides interesting context. Although the Cold War primarily took place between the United States and the Soviet Union, Communism was also radically changing the political and cultural landscape in China during the 1940s and 1950s. Although the book has a decidedly anti-communist outlook, its projected history imagines Soviet-American cooperation against Chinese interests. This may relate to the World War II alliance of the USSR and the Allies.
Themes
Major Reid asks Johnnie if 1,000 prisoners of war are enough to start or resume a war that might kill millions of innocent people. Without hesitation, Johnnie answers yes. Major Reid asks if one unreleased prisoner would justify war, and Johnnie hesitates. The cap trooper’s answer is “yes,” but he’s not sure if this is what Reid wants. But, when Reid complains about his delay, it’s the answer Johnnie gives.
The cap trooper’s answer to the question of how many men are worth risking one’s life for is anti-Utilitarian—he doesn’t consider the needs of the group to outweigh the needs of the individual. However, this trooper’s logic is based on the relatively small group of a platoon, not an entire civilization.
Themes
Reid demands that Johnnie prove his answer mathematically because History and Moral Philosophy is an “exact science.” Reid asks if taking the same actions for one person as for 1,000 wouldn’t be the same as saying one potato has the same value as a thousand? Johnnie answers that men aren’t potatoes, and Reid tells him to write out a proof “in symbolic logic” for his answer.
Johnnie defends his argument by pointing out that humans aren’t potatoes—implying that a person is much more valuable than an inanimate object. The arguments in this section of the book, as in earlier History and Moral Philosophy sections, claim that ethics have become an “exact science” by Johnnie’s lifetime, in contrast to the competing paradigms 20th- and 21st-century individuals must grapple with. Reid “proves” his statements by pointing to outside sources and scientific laws. But because these proofs aren’t spelled out in the book, it’s impossible to fully assess the validity of his claims. In the context of the Bug War, however, the anti-Utilitarian argument makes sense, because the concern for individuals is one of the key differences between the humans and the Arachnids.
Themes
Major Reid has Mr. Salomon (“Sally”) explain how the current political situation evolved out of the post-war “Disorders.” As 20th century governments collapsed, something had to fill the vacuum, and in many cases, jobless and disaffected veterans stepped into the hole. The first documented case was in Aberdeen, Scotland, where veterans organized vigilante groups to stop rioting and looting. They didn’t let civilians on their committee because they only trusted other veterans. Over a few generations, this organization became constitutional practice.
In the book’s worldview, military might makes right, as demonstrated by the history of the Federation’s government. But the government rests on a foundational assumption that almost no one who is morally compromised will make a successful soldier. The cases of Hendrick and Dillinger (Chapters 5, 6, and 8) show that insufficiently virtuous and moral men can be excluded from citizenship, but these examples aren’t necessarily exhaustive.
Themes
The Scottish veterans occasionally had to punish other veterans by hanging, and Johnnie suspects that they didn’t want civilians to interfere in their duty to keep order within their own ranks. And there was a lot of antagonism between veterans and civilians at the time. When Sally messes up his answer, Major Reid assigns him extra homework, too: he must write a 3,000-word summary of the history.
The idea that the veteran vigilantes had to punish some of their own ranks harks back to the M.I.’s execution of Dillinger in Chapter 8, while simultaneously suggesting that many fewer veterans needed to be executed than civilians. Civilian violence and chaos seem to show that civilians aren’t capable of governing themselves, while the antagonism between civilians and veterans suggests that the military takeover may not have been entirely benign.
Themes
Reid asks Sally for a practical reason why citizenship is limited to discharged veterans. Sally guesses that veterans are smarter than civilians, a claim Reid finds preposterous. Civilians can be more intelligent than servicemen, and this was the justification for the “Revolt of the Scientists,” which was predicated on the idea that letting the intelligent elite run things would lead to utopia. It failed because the pursuit of science isn’t a social virtue.
Major Reid’s question asks Sally to consider the relationship between service and citizenship, which hasn’t been explained. Sally’s easily refuted answer helps to establish the necessary capacities for citizenship, and intellect isn’t one of them. The pure pursuit of knowledge is not unlike the self-focused loyalty of the 20th-century juvenile delinquents discussed in Chapter 8: knowledge doesn’t push people to rise above their allegiance to small groups.
Themes
Sally guesses that servicemen make better citizens because they’re disciplined. Reid explains that it’s because the system works satisfactorily. Societies have always tried to put franchise into the best hands. From absolute monarchy to the “weird” and “antlike communism” proposed by Plato, people desired a “stable and benevolent” government and tried to achieve it by limiting franchise to those wise enough to use it justly. Many rules have bestowed franchise on different groups; they all worked, but none of them worked well. Eventually, they all collapsed or were overthrown. The current system works better than any previous one: people may complain but no one rises up; living standards are high; crime is low.
Sally’s second guess is closest to the arguments that Mr. Dubois and others have made: duty and discipline make a child into a man, and the civic virtue of adulthood possessed by soldiers makes them suitable citizens and leaders of society. For Major Reid, however, the rationale for the system is unimportant compared to the fact that it works well enough to bring stability and prosperity to the citizens and legal residents of the Federation. Because the fate of a society depends on how well it is governed, humans have tried many forms of government, all of which have failed.
Themes
Reid turns to Clyde Tammany and asks him why this system works better. Tammany guesses that it’s because the electors are a small group that really studies the issues. Reminding the class that this is an exact science, Reid points out that the ruling class was often small and aware of their responsibility. Moreover, the government is largely uniform even though military service—and franchise—vary among Terran nations and colonies. Instead, the current government works because each voter and officeholder has demonstrated, by military service, that they value the welfare of the group more than personal advantage.
Reid may be content to know that the system works, but his answer to Tammany’s question begins to explain how military service confirms the qualities of citizenship. The mere fact that military veterans represent a small group of people doesn’t guarantee success, as many governments throughout history also limited full participation. The real distinction is still the one that Johnnie quoted in class in Chapter 2: soldiers understand and have demonstrated that they are capable of valuing the group’s welfare more than their own. However, Reid doesn’t explore the potential conflict between this ethos and the recent argument that it’s worth risking the good of the whole society to rescue even one captured soldier.
Themes
The class period is almost over, yet they haven’t determined the moral reason for their government’s success. Like everything, the political system is subject to universal laws. To vote is to wield power, and the opposite of power is responsibility. Reid explains that for both practical and mathematical reasons, responsibility and authority must be equal. Unlimited democracies allowed authority without responsibility. In the current system, democracy is unlimited by personal factors such as age or race but is limited by dutiful military service. Because it perfectly balances the authority of franchise with the responsibility of military service, the system works.
As in previous sections enumerating the philosophy of the Terran Federation, Major Reid deflects important questions with an appeal to nature or outside sources. If authority and responsibility must be equal for a government to function optimally, then military veterans have earned their authority by demonstrating their responsibility. However, Reid doesn’t explain the proof that the equal balance of responsibility and authority is a universal law.
Themes
Reid asks why there hasn’t ever been a revolution. A cadet answers that revolution requires dissatisfaction and aggression, but their system diverts aggression into the discipline of Federal Service. If the aggressive people are the guard dogs, the “sheep” (civilians) won’t rise up.
Reid has used the stability of the Federation’s political system to claim its superiority over other historical forms of government. But the military’s clear ability to overpower untrained and unarmed civilians may also ensure stability through deterrence, rather than just by providing stability. The friction between the military’s actions following the attack on Buenos Aires and civilian desires sketched out in Chapter 10 illustrates this point: although the government wasn’t providing what the civilians wanted, they had no choice but to accept the military’s choices.
Themes
In the final moments of class, Reid opens the floor to the cadets’ questions. One asks why they don’t make everyone serve and give everyone franchise. Reid replies that it would be easier to restore Reid’s eyesight than to instill moral virtue in a person who doesn’t want it. This is why conscript armies in the past have failed.
This cadet’s question anticipates an objection to the Terran Federation’s system of government. To prove civic virtue, military service must be voluntary. Earlier episodes, particularly Hendrick’s insubordination and Dillinger’s crime spree, demonstrated that even volunteers can lack sufficient virtue, confirming Reid’s assertion that it’s impossible to force people to have virtue.
Themes
Johnnie gets one of Reid’s “extra credit” assignments when he suggests that the Crusades were unlike other wars. He must prove “that war and moral perfection derive from the same genetic inheritance.” All wars—including the Crusades—arise from population pressure. All correct morals are an extension of the survival instinct, and population pressure is a result of many people surviving. Therefore, because war arises from population pressure, which is itself a result of successful survival instincts, war comes from the same evolutionary pressures as moral perfection.
Johnnie’s explanation weaves together the historical power of violence with Mr. Dubois’s lessons on evolutionary theory. Like the History and Moral Philosophy sections, it provides an opportunity for the book to lay its arguments alongside the development of the plot. And, like the balanced “equation” of responsibility and authority, it relies on several assumptions that may or may not be true: that morals arise from survival instincts (discussed earlier by Mr. Dubois in Chapter 8), that violence is the defining force of history (discussed by Mr. Dubois in Chapter 2), and that there is a scientific theory of morals (discussed by Mr. Dubois in Chapter 8 and assumed by Major Reid earlier in this chapter).
Themes
Eliminating population pressure won’t end war, either. Species that keep increasing will crowd out those that stop. Even if humanity balanced birth and death just right, they’ll eventually encounter extraterrestrial species like the Bugs that are increasing. Humanity must spread out and wipe out the Bugs or be wiped out by them. Whether humanity has this right or not, correct morals arise from universal truths, according to which a human being is a wild animal with the will to survive.
In a society where violence is considered the defining force of history, Johnnie can pull the evolutionary concepts of competition and survival of the fittest from the natural world into the realm of military conflict, because he understands the military as the enforcer society’s will. And if society operates like an organism, its primary objective is its own survival, which means outcompeting other species. In this worldview, there is no force in the universe that can stop population pressure: all species will continually seek to out-compete each other. This us-or-them mentality both reflects and explains the glorification of the military in the book.
Themes
Near the end of OCS, the cadets ship out and serve under experienced commanders. Some won’t come back, either because they didn’t make the grade, or because they were killed. Johnnie is excited to get a break from classes and late nights of studying. He is called to the Commandant’s office for his orders along with Cadets Hassan “the Assassin”—the oldest man in the class—and the small and unintimidating Byrd.
Book learning alone is insufficient to make a good officer, and the cadets must show that they can manage themselves in action. As the oldest and youngest men in the group, Hassan and Birdie demonstrate the meritocratic nature of the military, in which ability is as important as age and experience.
Themes
Colonel Nielssen is a fleet general who accepted a temporary rank of colonel to be Commandant. He welcomes the cadets and offers them coffee while he explains that they’ll be “temporary third lieutenants” on assignment. This rank keeps them junior to the real officers while still placing them in the line of command.
Like many of the other disabled teachers and Mr. Dubois, Colonel Nielssen illustrates the dangers of service while he models the commitment of the ideal soldier. And Colonel runs OCS for love, not money: he has taken a pay cut for the privilege of training the next generation of officers.
Themes
To illustrate the importance of the chain of command, Nielssen points out his assistant, Miss Kendrick, without whom he couldn’t run the school. Nevertheless, if he drops dead, she will never take over, even though she has the knowledge and skill to do so. She has no authority because she’s not in the chain of command. Neither are cadets, who don’t even have a rank because they are students. They’re under Army discipline but not in the Army. The thought that he’s temporarily not M.I. leaves Johnnie feeling naked. Colonel Nielssen assures Johnnie that he still belongs to the M.I.; if he dropped dead, he’d be commissioned and sent back to his mates for burial.
When Johnnie was a private, he didn’t think much about the chain of command, because he was junior to almost everyone else. However, as an officer, he must understand his place. His temporary rank is to make his orders legal. Johnnie expresses more distress at the thought of being cut off from the M.I.—his military family—than he did when he thought he had been orphaned by the attack on Buenos Aires. Especially now that his father is also an infantryman, Johnnie’s allegiance and sense of community is limited to the military realm. And he’s not truly banished; he’d be returned to his family if anything bad happened to him.
Themes
Nielssen explains that the cadets are temporarily commissioned so they can legally take and give orders and assume higher command if necessary. In this case, they must be ready to give the right orders in a calm and reassuring tone, because their teams will be looking toward them in a moment of trouble. Birdie, Hassan, and Johnnie are all unnerved, and Johnnie wishes he were still a private back on the Roger Young.
This is a big moment for Johnnie, who is about to step into a role of authority over others. Since he’s already related two instances where this didn’t go well for him—losing his recruit corporal status for his teammate’s actions in Chapter 5 and cutting corners during a practice drill in Chapter 7—he’s understandably nervous. However, he’s learned a lot from those experiences and everything else he’s gone through subsequently.
Themes
There’s no way to tell a real officer from an imitation other than a trial by the fire of combat, so they must go on these apprenticeships. The Terran Federation’s Army is different from historical armies, because all its officers must first prove themselves as soldiers. As in basic training, the instructors then try to get as many cadets out of OCS as they feel are unlikely to make good officers. The only thing they can’t test in the school itself is whether a cadet just looks like he will make a good officer, or whether he will.
Just as all potential citizens must prove their civic virtue and willingness to sacrifice through military service, so too must all officers prove their ability to command in battle. In the 20th and 21st centuries, it was possible for individuals to enter the military as officers, through attending a military academy or participating in ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) in college. Nielssen’s lecture insinuates that allowing untested soldiers to become officers violates the balance of responsibility and authority recently explained by Major Reid.
Themes
Colonel Nielssen asks if they’re ready to take the oath. When they answer after only a brief pause, he frowns and resumes explaining the stakes. Johnnie hasn’t considered what it would be like to be court-martialed for losing a regiment—but he knows it would be terrible.
Nielssen heavily stresses the potentially terrible consequences of the cadets’ training tours. But like uncomfortable corporal discipline, his aim isn’t to damage the cadets but rather to help them to grow into the role they’re about to assume.
Themes
Nielssen quizzes Hassan on the largest number of command levels lost in a battle—four levels at once. There was once a very green third lieutenant in the Navy. In battle, he saw his commanding officer wounded and left his post to carry him out of the line of fire. However, at that moment, the rest of the officers were killed, putting him in command. He was charged for deserting his post as a commanding officer, because pickup and inexperience aren’t excuses for the chain of command breaking. Johnnie hopes he won’t ever be in a similar situation, but if he was, he’d take command and act according to the tactical situation. Nielssen assures him he’d die doing so, but he’d die doing what he was supposed to do.
The story of the ill-fated lieutenant offers a warning to the cadets about the responsibility they’re about to assume and again draws a line from these cadets back to the soldiers of the past. As he did so many years ago for Mr. Dubois, when he’s put on the spot, Johnnie gives the textbook answer to Nielssen’s question.
Themes
Colonel Nielssen finally swears Johnnie, Hassan, and Birdie to their new temporary ranks. Before handing out their temporary insignia, he dispenses more advice. Now more friendly, he explains that his alarming lecture was designed to make the cadets worry now so they’d be prepared later. And they won’t be alone: they will have their platoon sergeants to help them. These sergeants will surely be older and more experienced than the temporary third lieutenants. They should ask for—and listen to—their advice. They don’t have to take it, but they do need to act with assurance.
Nielssen’s advice to rely on their sergeants illustrates the value placed on experience in the field. While the cadets will each join a platoon temporarily, the sergeants’ ongoing assignments give them a priceless depth of experience on which the cadets can rely. This also foreshadows the important role Johnnie’s sergeant will play on Planet P in Chapter 13. Above all, the cadets should act with the authority of officers, because this is the true test of their merit.
Themes
Nielssen retrieves a box of insignia pips, previously worn by a cadet who’s now a captain, and offers them to Hassan. He tells him to wear them gallantly and to bring them back. Birdie says he’s not superstitious, which is fortunate because his pips have been worn by five officers that died in combat—but did so with bravery and excellence. The pips’ owners have accumulated 17 posthumous awards.
Military tradition surrounds the temporary rank pips, which are used, returned, and passed down to subsequent cadets. Hassan’s pips illustrate the best-case scenario, for O’Kelly (the previous cadet who wore them) not only survived his apprenticeship cruise, but he’s been rising steadily through the ranks. Birdie’s, which have belonged to five now-dead men, illustrate a worst-case scenario. But honorable deaths prove the worthiness of the men who have lost their lives.
Themes
Before receiving his pips, Johnnie asks where he can learn more about the unfortunate naval officer from Nielssen’s story. He should look up the Battle between the Chesapeake and Shannon in the Naval Encyclopedia. Nielssen tells Johnnie that Mr. Dubois wrote to ask that his old pips be given to Johnnie, but the man who last had them died with them, and they were never retrieved. Johnny is delighted to realize that Mr. Dubois is keeping track of him.
Mr. Dubois is still watching his progress, and his desire for Johnnie to wear his own pips demonstrates both affection and respect for his former student. The battle Nielssen referenced earlier occurred during the War of 1812 between the United States Ship Chesapeake and the British vessel Shannon. It does indeed illustrate the burden of responsibility that officers assume. Contrary to Nielssen’s assertions, however, the lieutenant’s family was able to convince the American government to overturn his conviction and reinstate his rank.
Themes
Nielssen offers Johnnie the choice of breaking in a fresh pair of pips or a pair that seem unlucky—the past four candidates who wore them failed their commissions. Johnnie would “rather have petted a shark,” but he accepts the mission of breaking the “hoodoo.” Nielssen himself wore the pips first, and he’ll be pleased if Johnnie brings them back with the bad luck broken. He reminds Johnnie to take—and study—his math textbooks while on assignment and dismisses him.
In place of Mr. Dubois’s pips, Colonel Nielssen offers Johnnie his own, which represent the worst-case scenario: success and death are both glorious, but failure is not. This not only draws Johnnie into the Colonel’s military family, but it speaks to his confidence in the young man, because he expects Johnnie to break the bad luck that seems to have attached itself to the pips.
Themes
Because they’re on the same air car, Birdie tells Johnnie that Hassan has to study three subjects. In contrast, Birdie is a “professor type” who teaches math. Not only is he a genius, but he’s also a good soldier, and everyone assumes he’ll be in command of a brigade by the time he’s 30. Johnnie worries that Hassan will flunk out, but even if he does, he reverts to his field commission rank of first lieutenant. Johnnie can’t understand why he’d give up a permanent rank of first lieutenant to become a second lieutenant through OCS. Birdie points out that Hassan’s education is primarily from his time in ranks, which will limit his promotions; to oversee planning battles and wars requires a deep and broad education. If Birdie fails, he’ll revert to Private First Class, in part because he’s so young.
Birdie, Johnnie, and Hassan illustrate different ways that the military meritocracy allows suitable men to rise to the top. Hassan’s field commission proves his worth as a soldier, but he’s not had the benefit of the same education that Johnnie and Birdie received. Nevertheless, his time at OCS will overcome this deficiency and enable him to progress as far in the ranks as his personal virtue will allow. Conversely, while Birdie’s tremendous intelligence augments his training, he’s far younger and less experienced than Hassan or even Johnnie. A soldier’s value lies in his actions, not his education, natural intelligence, or age.
Themes
Johnnie and Birdie part ways. Two weeks later, Birdie is commissioned, and his pips are returned to the school with their newest award for his valor.
Unfortunately, Birdie will never progress through the ranks, although according to the book’s definition of virtue, by dying with honor and bravery, he's already fulfilled his highest potential.
Themes
