Life on the Bounce

Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers

By Philip Voodoo

Few novels elicit such fervent criticism and loyal adoration six and a half decades after publication like Robert Heinlein’s 1959 award-winning novel Starship Troopers. A failed attempt at satire in the form of Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 film adaptation backfired beautifully on the director.

Verhoevern’s adaptation serves as an assemblage of all leftist criticism of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. It intentionally misrepresents the source material, while not even understanding why readers love it. The clearest illustration of the difference between the souls of novel and film, is the scene that sets the entire plot in motion. More specifically, the scene where protagonist Juan "Johnny" Rico hands his papers to his recruiter, and learns he's not destined to be a Star Pilot, but is instead bound for the Terran Federation's Mobile Infantry.

In the film, Verhoeven plays the scene as a sight gag. When the recruiter sees that Rico has failed to qualify for every other job in the Federation’s military, he grins, and heartily informs Rico that "Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today." The camera then lingers on his missing legs and prosthetic arm, before briefly flashing to Rico's sudden look of uncertainty.

The rest of the film—an impotent, leftist tirade against militarism, fascism, and any other "-ism" the director could accuse Heinlein's novel of advocating—attempts to frame Rico's enlistment as a cruel joke. He's a dupe; a fresh piece of cannon fodder that's too stupid to realize he's being had. By the movie's final reel, this poor clod has completely bought into the fascism and militarism, and is not simply marching along. He's giving the orders.

That Verhoeven doesn't think highly of the novel (which he admittedly didn’t even read), its characters, or the fictional society they inhabit is appallingly clear. Indeed, he openly admits to placing Heinlein's characters in Nazi-like uniforms as a "subtle" signal to the audience that these characters are "bad." We are not meant to like them, we are not meant to look up to them, and we are not meant to agree with anything in their worldview.

It's an attempt at undermining everything Heinlein's novel stands for, but one that ultimately fails like nearly all other criticism of Heinlein’s story, because the novel's themes of heroism, sacrifice, and selfless dedication are timeless.

In the novel, Rico does indeed have intentions of becoming a Star Pilot, a decision he makes on a whim to impress a pretty female classmate. As in the film, Rico tests too poorly for nearly anything but Mobile Infantry. Not knowing much about the service, he does indeed see it as a spot of rotten luck.

But it's the reaction of the amputee recruiter that makes the difference.

The recruiter, upon learning Rico is bound for the Mobile Infantry, shakes Rico's hand. He proudly tells Rico the infantry is the military, and that all other services are little more than paper pushers or bean counters who are there to get the Mobile Infantry to the fight. He tells Rico the infantry will make a man out of him, or kill him in the process.

In other words, Rico isn't being turned into cannon fodder. He is being given an opportunity to join an elite brotherhood. And it is a brotherhood. In Heinlein's novel—and until recently, in real life—the infantry is exclusively male. This flies in the face of the current-day, leftist belief in equality über alles. There are no exclusively male places or tasks in the leftist worldview, and anything that even hints at their necessity is deemed sexist, regressive, and "toxic."

This is one of the strengths of Heinlein's novel, and one of the deep truths that Verhoeven tried—unsuccessfully—to erase in his film. Starship Troopers is a coming-of-age story, the tale of a young man leaving the safety of his home, earning his place among his fellow men, and learning the value of sacrifice, duty, and camaraderie. Against the backdrop of an interstellar war with the alien Arachnids, Rico learns what it means to be a man, a soldier, and a citizen.

In short, it's an old-fashioned boys' adventure tale, one that's wholly unapologetic in its embrace of masculine and martial virtue. A story no amount of Hollywood self-loathing, sarcasm, or mockery could stop viewers from loving.

A Coming of Age Tale

Born to an affluent family, Rico is a "golden child," a young man with a guaranteed ticket to Harvard, and a cushy executive position in his father's business waiting for him after graduation. Military service isn't even a consideration for him. The only real benefit a completed term of service offers is it confers the right to vote, and the right to hold public office. Military service is regarded as a low-status occupation, a waste of time and talent for otherwise promising young people. Rico’s successful civilian father is aghast at Rico’s decision to serve, and refuses to speak to him for several days while he ponders what cover story he will tell his friends to hide his shame at his son’s decision.

Without his father's approval—but ultimately not needing it—Rico willingly rejects a remora-esquire life of comfort and embarks alone on a journey which would be universally jeered at by the liberals of today. The Mobile Infantry is the most difficult, demanding branch of service in the Terran Federation. Rico lives and works in the most Spartan of conditions, and slowly transforms himself from a carefree civilian to a recruit, then to soldier, and finally to battle-hardened officer.

In the film version, Verhoeven cynically tries to paint this journey as one of Rico gradually becoming more brainwashed, more indoctrinated into a system that is using him. Yes, he becomes an officer, but it is a hollow position. Rico is just a slightly bigger cog in a mindless, soulless machine. He becomes an officer not because he's earned it, but because everyone senior to him is killed in action.

In the novel, Rico is not only encouraged to think for himself—he is required to. Before the Mobile Infantry will trust him with command, he must demonstrate both his understanding of how and why to fight. The Terran Federation doesn't want obedient robots. They want physically strong, thinking, moral warriors.

That isn't the only difference between Heinlein's creation and Verhoeven's poorly-trained, gender-neutral army of establishment dupes. The Mobile Infantry of the novel is a highly selective, highly technical, and highly specialized fighting force. The average grunt is required to possess enough competence, skill, and subject-matter expertise to rate him as a master in any other trade. They're a science-fictional airborne corps, dropping from Federation Starships in one-man reentry capsules to assault hostile planets. These capsules give the Mobile Infantry their preferred nickname, Cap Troopers.

Once on the ground, Heinlein's Cap Troopers don't fight with the flimsy armor, ineffective rifles, and communist-like human wave tactics of the Verhoeven film. They use fully-mechanized suits of powered armor, armed with flame throwers, missiles, and small nuclear weapons. Each armored Cap Trooper is a one-man army. They're equipped with jump-jets, enabling them to leap over battlefield obstacles, and rain death on the enemy below.

It's this maneuver that gives birth to a bit of soldiers' slang, oft-repeated in the novel, a phrase that cuts to the heart of what it means to be Infantry. From the moment he joins the Cap Troopers, everything in Rico's life is done "on the bounce," meaning with intent, purpose, and intensity. This is the antithesis of the modern, media-driven trend that encourages men to permanent, helpless adolescence. In the Mobile Infantry, impossible goals are set and regularly achieved. When two recruits are killed in training, Rico does not mourn as the men are buried. He is proud because they died “on the bounce”, still trying.

In sum, Rico’s journey is the kind of story mocked, undermined, and subverted in the current elite circles of today, because it is the story those circles fear most: if young men learn the value of hardship, brotherhood, and critical thinking, they will not need the elites to lead them, or the mechanisms of the state to nurture them.

They will become, like Rico, free men.

Citizen to Civilian

People in the Heinlein's Terran Federation are divided into two groups: civilians or citizens. While this system—where military service is the only way to full citizenship—is often misread as "fascist" by critics of the book, this criticism overlooks a key point.

Civilians enjoy all other rights, privileges, and protections the Federation offers. They can live their lives in peace, prosperity, and safety, and nothing will ever be asked of them in return. They are not an underclass, nor are they treated as such. The Federation does not lie or entice people into a life of dangerous service. Indeed, it seeks to actively discourage enlistment. Not only does it station gruesomely wounded men at the recruiting stations—remember the amputee recruiter—the law gives all potential recruits a mandatory, punishment-free period to rethink their decision. Anyone can walk away after signing the papers, and there are no legal repercussions.

But if the civilian is still set on serving, the Federation is required by law to take them. Anyone can serve. Man or woman, weak or strong, able-bodied or crippled, the Federation will find the best service for you. If none-such exists, it will be created on the spot. Heinlein’s novel openly mocks the notion of “equality of condition”. In the lethal brutality of intergalactic combat, there is no pretense someone weaker or less intelligent can magically perform to a standard to which they are not capable: and there is never a compromise of the standards. It is a ruthless selection, but service—and the opportunity to earn the franchise—is an inalienable right.

The failure to understand the true meaning of this dichotomy is what draws the loudest screams from critics. How could you take the right to vote away from people? How could they have no say in their lives and the government in which they live? The answer, eloquently stated by one of Rico's History & Moral Philosophy professors, is that voting is power. It is the application of the majority's will over the minority, and with that power comes responsibility. The book openly states if something is given, then it has no value. This privilege must be earned in Heinlein’s vision of the Terran Federation, by proving the prospective citizen is willing to shoulder responsibility of defending its civilians, up to and including at the cost of his own life, if necessary. This "yin and yang"—perfect responsibility in exchange for perfect authority—is presented as the reason the Terran Federation's political system was able to climb out of the crumbled wreckage of the failure of the past system, and work.

It's a philosophy that flies directly in the face of our current, utopian belief that everyone can exercise power responsibly, one which has arguably led us to the doorway of our current dystopia. At a minimum, it challenges the core tenets of modern liberalism: that everyone is equal, nothing should be earned, and that an individual bears no responsibility—and suffers no accountability—for his actions.

Bands of Brothers and Accountability

But a band of warrior elite like the Mobile Infantry thrives on accountability, both to one's self, and to the other members. Indeed, it's at the root of all martial codes, from Bushido, to Chivalry, to the Ranger Creed. The strength of the individual is exponentially amplified by subjugating that individuality to a worthy team, and that team draws its power from the strength of the individual.

Rico learns an unforgettable lesson in accountability in his first months of training, when a deserter from his Regiment is convicted of murder. Instead of letting a civilian judge carry out the death sentence (common for capital crimes in Rico’s world), the prisoner is brought back to the Mobile Infantry, and hung in front of his former brothers.

Not only is the prisoner swiftly punished for his crimes, but the Mobile Infantry willingly takes responsibility for their failure. There is no obfuscation and cover up, nor is there any political wordcraft. The honesty and willingness of the team to suffer accountability, to bear the stain on their honor, is one of the more refreshing aspects of the novel, especially when held up against the Grand Kabuki of contemporary military failures.

This grim lesson in accountability and shame stays with Rico, and shapes his character for life. You do not only own your successes. You own your failures. And you own the pain of those who suffer for those failures.

If that lesson is forged on the training field, then it is proven on the battlefield.

The ever-simmering conflict with the Arachnids goes from cold to hot while Rico is in training, and he earns his baptism of fire almost as soon as he joins his first unit. As the war progresses, Rico bonds with his fellow Cap Troopers, learning the meaning of brotherhood and camaraderie. There is no loner’s path in the Infantry. The platoon succeeds as one, or they die as one.

In choosing the life of a Mobile Infantryman, Rico refuses the desperate isolation and parasitic weakness our present-day media pushes on men. He grows stronger as an individual, and as a competent, valued member of his chosen brotherhood. He forges his own beliefs, reinforced by his brotherhood, rather than allow himself to become the blank slate for someone else to write their version of him on.

The ultimate test of that brotherhood comes during his first operation as a (probationary) officer. Rico's platoon sergeant goes missing, having disappeared down an Arachnid tunnel, and so does the section that went looking for him. Rico is scared at the prospect of going down after them. In the entire war, no Mobile Infantryman who has entered an Arachnid tunnel has ever emerged alive, but the men in that tunnel are his brothers. More than that, they are his responsibility. He would be deeply and rightly ashamed NOT to go in after them… so he jumps in, before his nerve can break, and helps turn the tide of the war.

This scene, more than almost any other, is one of the reasons Starship Troopers continues to resonate with young men six decades later. Heinlein’s hero is a hero of old. A hero who knows what needs to be done, and has the moral and physical ability to see it through. This is also why Starship Troopers draws such revealing vitriol. It rejects the weak, broken, male archetype, where even heroes need to be sullen and guilt ridden, painted more as anti-hero than hero. Rico is none of that, he dedicates himself to improving both himself, and his surroundings, not relying on someone else, or the government to do it for him. He lives his life on the bounce, where everyone fights and no one quits, and puts service to others ahead of himself.

This is also why the Verhoeven film, and nearly all the rabid hordes of social and literary critics, fail to undercut Heinlein's message. The themes of the book are too true, too universal, and too powerful to crumble under the weight of Verhoeven's dripping sarcasm. The audience understands that a man who jumps down a hole to rescue his buddies is a hero, regardless of how much pseudo-Nazi regalia you dress him in.

Heinlein believes that this call to service is not universal to all people, but it rings in the ears of the honorable until it is answered. The novel illustrates that point with a powerful, unforgettable scene. Rico, who was absent and out of touch with his family since the war began, runs into a familiar face while in transit back to his ship. A familiar face, in an unfamiliar uniform. His own father, who had so scoffed at his son’s decision to serve, has chosen to enlist. Not only did he enlist, he volunteered to endure the extreme hardship of Mobile Infantry training. He admits it had indeed been shame that drove him into anger after his son’s decision to enlist, but not shame at what his society friends might think. It was shame at himself, for never having had the courage to serve. It took his son’s sacrifice to show him how to be a man in his own eyes.

Yes, service guarantees citizenship.

But hardship, camaraderie, and accountability forge a citizen.