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
Within two weeks, the recruits begin to sleep on the ground. Boot camp teaches Johnnie that the key to happiness is a good night’s sleep. In theory, the recruits are given eight hours for sleep and an hour and a half in the evening for their own activities. But because they are subject to drills, night watch, extra duty assignments, laundry, uniform maintenance, haircuts, and personal hygiene, they often have much less free time. When they do have some free time, they use it to write letters, gossip, play cards, or sleep, which is widely regarded as the best use of it.
Basic training is challenging, and one of the biggest changes from civilian life is how little control the recruits have over their time. From a privileged childhood in which he received helicopters as birthday gifts, Johnnie now finds happiness in the smallest of things, like a good night’s sleep or a few extra hours for a nap. Military life is hardening him and preparing him to withstand discomfort and distress.
Themes
Looking back, Johnnie maintains that boot camp was made just hard as necessary. The meanness and difficulty of training were planned and carried out with surgical precision. The military’s psychologists prevented dumb bullies from becoming instructors. Making things as hard as possible for recruits required smart, detached, and “dedicated craftsmen” who could trim away those recruits not cut out for military service.
The difficulties of training serve an important purpose. Since the lives of all soldiers depend on their comrades, and since Federal Service is the gateway to citizenship, it’s incredibly important that only those men who are cut out for military service make it through basic training. This reinforces the militarism in the Terran Federation’s culture: the government is run by people who have survived this training. In addition, the discomfort of military discipline contrasts with the softness and moral decay of a privileged, civilian life.
Themes
Some recruits were too old to keep up the pace. There was a 35-year-old named Carruthers who shouted that it wasn’t fair and that he’d be back while he was carried away on a stretcher. He rejected his medical discharge and became a third cook on a troop transport. When Johnnie encountered him years later, he was still proud of his time at Camp Currie.
Carruthers is another example of the ideal soldier, even though he can’t make it in the M.I. His refusal of medical discharge by itself isn’t enough to prove his civic virtue. But his willingness to accept any position, even the incredibly lowly one of third cook, demonstrates his devotion to Federal Service as its own reward.
Themes
Thinning the ranks saves resources, but most importantly, it prevents soldiers who aren’t prepared from ending up in combat, because sending unprepared soldiers into battle isn’t fair to society, the soldier’s teammates, or the soldier himself. If someone were to ask Johnnie if boot camp was harder than necessary, he would answer that the next time he goes into battle, he’d rather be beside men who graduated from Camp Currie or its Siberian equivalent.
With the benefit of hindsight, Johnnie is confident that basic training was exactly as hard as it needed to be to get rid of the kinds of men he wouldn’t want to find himself in battle with. Johnnie takes it for granted that sending an unqualified man into battle is not only dangerous, but it’s unfair to the man. However, he doesn’t really consider why “unqualified” people might try to make it in Federal Service, even though powerfully incentivized by the reward of full citizenship.
Themes
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Still, it sometimes felt mean. Johnnie recalls how he once received a too-large tunic for parade. On this occasion, he complains to the supply sergeant. Because of his fatherly manner—and Johnnie’s inability to interpret his award ribbons—Johnnie thinks of him as more approachable than the instructors. But the supply sergeant doesn’t have time for Johnnie’s complaints either. He offers Johnnie a needle and thread and tells him to tailor the tunic himself. Johnnie’s work leaves Zim unimpressed, so he catches extra duty. But he does a better job before the next parade.
While he’s just a soldier recruit, Johnnie hasn’t learned the nuances of military culture. Therefore, he doesn’t treat the supply sergeant with the respect he deserves. Nevertheless, the supply sergeant treats Johnnie decently, teaching him how to take responsibility for himself. Johnnie initially expects someone else to fix the tunic, like an irresponsible civilian. But listening to the supply sergeant and learning how to properly tailor his uniform for himself shows that he’s learning to take care of himself instead of relying on others.
Themes
The first six weeks of basic training are mostly hazing and conditioning. Sometimes the recruits will march out and stay in the field, so Johnnie learns to sneak sugar and crackers from the mess tent. He’s promoted to recruit-corporal after his squad leader goes to the hospital. During a drill in which the recruits sleep on the prairie without rations or bed bags, Johnnie organizes his squad to share their snacks and learns to huddle like sheep with his mates to stay warm. The next morning, he initially feels pretty rough, but he warms up as he starts to move around. Johnnie sticks it out even as other recruits resign.
Johnnie learns quickly how to take care of himself. Sneaking extra items from the mess tent might not be quite according to regulations, but it’s the kind of self-reliance and quick thinking that the M.I. trooper needs to augment his training. Sharing snacks and sleeping in a huddle teaches Johnnie and the others how to balance their individual needs with the good of the whole group. And again, although Johnnie downplays its importance, his quick promotion to “recruit-corporal” indicates that his instructors see his potential, even if he himself doesn’t.
Themes
Flashing forward briefly in his memory, Johnnie recalls enduring a similar, harder test twelve weeks later, when the recruits are dumped, alone and naked, in the Canadian Rockies and tasked with finding their way back to base. He hates the Army the whole time, but he makes it. He hunts rabbits for food and turns their skins into moccasins and a coat for protection. Two other recruits die trying. Johnnie and the rest of the class spend two weeks searching for them because “the Mobile Infantry doesn’t abandon its own while there is any thin shred of hope.” The dead recruits—one of whom is Breckinridge—are posthumously awarded the rank of Private First Class and buried with military honors. They are the first—but not the last—to die in training.
When Johnnie hunts rabbits in the wilderness and fashions their skins into a rudimentary coat, he completes the character development arc begun by tailoring his own uniform for parade. Before, he looked to others to fix his problems, but now he’s becoming disciplined enough to take care of himself. He has already claimed that training is just as hard as it needs to be to properly prepare soldiers for duty, and he doesn’t make exceptions for the deaths of three recruits during the Rocky Mountains exercise. As the book repeatedly claims, Federal Service demonstrates a soldier’s willingness to put his life on the line. The dead recruits are awarded their rank and buried with military honors because they made good on this commitment even though they never saw a real battlefield.
Themes
