In the 1960s I eventually moved on from Robert Heinlein’s juvenile science fiction to his YA/Adult Science fiction. One of my favorite novels during this period was Starship Troopers. I was certainly moving into my military science fiction fandom era. I even considered ROTC in college (my dad talked me out of it… said I’d wind up in the stockade as I wouldn’t follow orders… he was probably right).
Starship Troopers follows a young man through coming of age. He was a spoiled rich kid, and things look dim until the “Bugs” attack Earth and affect his own family.
The storyline connects citizenship with service. Not a bad notion. It did limit citizenship to military service, but frankly I think some sort of volunteer service between high school and college would be a good idea.
Sadly, Director Paul Verhoeven took it well beyond service turning it more into fascism, and giving the political views of Heinlein a negative twist. It also turned an excellent movie that could have approached “Edge of Tomorrow” for a more animae type version that served RoboCop well but not this particular story.