Starship Troopers is the story of Juan "Johnnie" Rico, a Filipino soldier in a futuristic spacefaring Earth military unit called the Mobile Infantry. Told in flashbacks, Rico's story is one of intense violence, taking place during a war with a race of sentient insects from another world. The novel spends a great deal of time reflecting from a Conservative point of view on war, service, nationalism, and other pertinent issues.
Starship Troopers (1959) by Robert A. Heinlein is a controversial science fiction novel that received a Hugo Award in 1960 and is the only science fiction novel on the reading lists of four out of five of the United States military academies, as well as the official reading lists of the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps. It has been in continuous print since its first printing in 1959.
"The difference, I said carefully, "lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not."
"The exact words of the book," he said scornfully. "But do you understand it? Do you believe it?"
"Exactly! The prize for first place is worthless to you . . . because you haven't earned it. But you enjoy a modest satisfaction in placing fourth; you earned it."
Juan Rico
Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois (Ret.)
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