Starship Troopers

by

Robert A. Heinlein

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Lieutenant Spieksma Character Analysis

Lieutenant Spieksma works at Regimental Headquarters when Johnnie is at Camp Currie; he presides over Hendrick’s field court-martial. Like Captain Frankel and Sergeant Zim, he understands the seriousness of Hendrick’s crime, but wants to avoid the death penalty. After declaring Hendrick’s punishment, however, he indicates the seriousness of the crime by spelling out the actions that Frankel could have taken that would have led to capital punishment.

Lieutenant Spieksma Quotes in Starship Troopers

The Starship Troopers quotes below are all either spoken by Lieutenant Spieksma or refer to Lieutenant Spieksma. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Militarism Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5 Quotes

The Court does not permit you to resign. The Court wishes to add that your punishment is light simply because this Court possesses no jurisdiction to assign greater punishment. The authority which remanded you specified a field court-martial—why it so chose, this Court will not speculate. But had you been remanded for general court-martial, it seems certain that the evidence before this court would have caused a general court to sentence you to hang by the neck until dead. You are very lucky—and the remanding authority has been most merciful.

Related Characters: Lieutenant Spieksma (speaker), Ted Hendrick, Captain Frankel
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:
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Lieutenant Spieksma Quotes in Starship Troopers

The Starship Troopers quotes below are all either spoken by Lieutenant Spieksma or refer to Lieutenant Spieksma. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Militarism Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5 Quotes

The Court does not permit you to resign. The Court wishes to add that your punishment is light simply because this Court possesses no jurisdiction to assign greater punishment. The authority which remanded you specified a field court-martial—why it so chose, this Court will not speculate. But had you been remanded for general court-martial, it seems certain that the evidence before this court would have caused a general court to sentence you to hang by the neck until dead. You are very lucky—and the remanding authority has been most merciful.

Related Characters: Lieutenant Spieksma (speaker), Ted Hendrick, Captain Frankel
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis: