# Starship Troopers indicative of a philosophical motiff?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-troopers-indicative-of-a-philosophical-motiff/78963>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [August 30, 2001, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-troopers-indicative-of-a-philosophical-motiff/78963 "2001-08-30T17:11:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2001, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-troopers-indicative-of-a-philosophical-motiff/78963/41 "2001-09-02T07:00:32Z")

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Sure, you could end up being a doctor, or a ditchdigger, but there’s such a thing as a military doctor, and historically, various armies have always been the world’s number one employer of ditchdiggers. The catepillar thing is obviously a joke. Logistics/intelligence is also a military role, and we’re never told what sort of research Carlos was doing, are we? I’m still not convinced. Like I said, there’s plenty of non-combat jobs, but non-combat does not mean non-military.

If Heinlein ever did complain about people not getting the book, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in _Expanded Universe_. So far as I know, I’ve never read any specific comments by RAH on the matter.

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**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2001, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-troopers-indicative-of-a-philosophical-motiff/78963/42 "2001-09-02T07:19:42Z")

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Hmmm, I seem to remember a conversation about the whole idea of volunteering when Rico was undergoing the physical. He asked about failing the physical-- to which he found you couldn’t. The physical was just to find out what sort of job you qualified for. If you had no arms, no legs, and were blind in _three_ eyes they’d still find a job for you.

I’ll see if I can dig it up…

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