[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by radius

I tried hard to understand how you could see any "military theory" in the book, but it still eludes me. There is some explanation about how the regiment is structured, but that is meant to address why-we-fight, and not to advocate a particular composition for the *actual* American armed forces, which, you must remember, do not have powered armour to fight in.

I'm a bit mystified by that, too. You can infer some military theory behind the deployment and tactics used by the MI, with early engagements essentially commando raids to keep the enemy off balance while the Federation rebuilds after the disastrous first attempt at taking Bug homeworld Klendathu.

But it's not really about military theory. As you comment, the book is largely about "why we fight", and told from the perspective of a grunt who has little initial view of the big picture. It's a story of moral growth, and the answers Johhny Rico give to that question at different points chart his development.

Then there are some comments about how the government is run (which I remembered incorrectly, it is not all civil service which makes you eligible to vote, it is that the military have taken over all civil service) but I, and others, have addressed that many times in this thread already (and I don't think you read my previous post, to be honest )

You can argue it either way.

The government described in ST is the result of returning vets filling a power vacuum after a war destabilized their society. They more or less trusted each other, and the outcome was that you had to be a vet to get a say in how things were run. By the time Johnny Rico joins the MI, lots of non-military jobs qualify as terms of service leading to the franchise, and it's made clear that serving military personnel do not get the franchise. You must successfully survive, serve your term, and be honorably discharged before you may vote. (RAH's characters were well aware of the dangers in a pure military government.)

Looking at Heinlein's work as a whole, I don't remember any other society which comes close to being run by the military or veterans. The only other story which I find similar in tone is Space Cadet (also a bildungsroman about a young man who joins the military), where a worldwide military organisation exists. However, in this book, Matt, the protagonist, joins the Space Patrol which is contrasted with the Marines. The Marines are very much like the cap troopers from Starship Troopers who believe there is no higher duty than to die for ones' country, but the Space Patrol are characterized as "professors". The Marines are looked at by the Space Patrol almost as regrettably necessary cannon fodder.

So the only two novels where the main characters join the military show a different viewpoint of military ideals, and no other novels push this kind of agenda. This doesn't sound to me like someone advocating for a change in government or military structure.

One of the underlying themes in a lot of RAH's work was the relation between authority and responsibility, and that you could not have the first without the second without chaos as a likely result. One of the issues RAH highlights is just how you go about making the leaders responsible to the people and accountable for their actions. One answer is the one in ST - a say in how things are run is not a right you get by existing - it's a privilege you earn by doing something that will benefit your society (and may be personally dangerous to you.)

If I remember correctly, in my copy of Haldeman's Forever War, he tells a story about being nervous the first time he met RAH, because it could be seen as a sort of rebuttal to Starship Troopers, but Heinlein put him at ease instead. Where is the polemicism you detected?

I don't see it. _The Forever War_ can be read as an answer to ST, but not exactly as a rebuttal. Heinlein was an officer invalided out before being able to serve. Haldeman was a grunt on the line who did see combat. It gave a different perspective to his work. Other authors with Haldeman's sort of view are David Drake, who served with the Black Horse in Vietnam, and David Sherman, co-author with Dan Cragg of the Starfist series, who was a Marine in Vietnam. (Sherman tells stories about doing things like moving in and pacifying a village, then protecting the villagers from both the VC and their own landlords...)

You don't have to like the book, but I feel you misunderstood it (and maybe disagree with the central message) and it definitely doesn't warrant an "Avoid at all costs!" label for Heinlein based on that alone.

When you can take a comment made by a secondary character in another novel as representative of the author's thinking, all bets on your judgment are off.

Pie was incensed at Jill's comments on rape in SIASL, and assumed they represented Heinlein's beliefs. Determining the author's viewpoint character in a book is always fraught, but in SIASL, Jubal Harshaw is pretty much universally assumed to the the RAH viewpoint character. If Jubal said it, it's a decent bet it's what RAH believed. Any thing any other character said was another matter.

And it leads to a larger and thornier question. Most authors tell stories with good guys and bad guys, and the bad guy's thoughts, statements, and actions can be horrific. At what point do we let our distaste for them lead us to believe it's what the author thinks as well?

Statements I make damning the author for the thoughts, words, and actions of a character probably say a lot more about me than about the author, and what they say isn't very good.
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Dennis