Starship Troopers 4

Study Guide Question for Chapter Four

If you are looking for the beginning of the study of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of available book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!

Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Happiness, Perseverance, Hope

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What did Johnnie learn how to do “any place, any time?”

2. What word did the soldiers answer morning roll call with and what happened to the man caught lying about it?

3. What did the troopers at basic decide was mere “mythology created by inflamed imaginations?”

4. What kind of instructors did the psych officers of Mobile Infantry work hard to keep out?

5. What was the “immediate purpose” behind the extreme difficulty of basic training?

6. What did Johnnie have to learn to do with his “undress maroons?”

7. How did Johnnie and all the recruits have to spend the night after a 50 mile march?

8. What happened “twelve weeks later” which made that difficult night seem like a luxury?

9. What happened to Breckinridge?

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. Why was it critical that basic training be “as hard as possible?”

2. Why did Johnnie say he would “refuse to enter the capsule” if the men around him were not trained at Camp Currie or its “Siberian equivalent?”

3. What did Johnnie mean when he said, “I didn’t know how, as of then, to read the ribbons on his chest or I wouldn’t have dared to speak to him?”

4. Why did the supply sergeant give the specific instructions to Johnnie about his uniform that he should “tight ‘em plenty across the hips but leave cloth to loose ‘em again across the shoulders; you’ll need it later?”

5. Why were the two men who died awarded the rank of PFC posthumously? What was the point in doing this?

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. Consider Johnnie’s claim, “Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.” Evaluate this claim. How true is it? What is typically considered necessary for happiness? What role does sleep play in gaining or maintaining human happiness? How does a lack of sleep affect our ability to be happy?

2. Two of the men in Johnnie’s group died during the survival exercise. Do you think this indicates that the training was too extreme? Should the military be allowed to put men who are in training into such dangerous situations? Why or why not?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Robert Heinlein (the author) quoted Judges 7:1-8, in part, at the beginning of this chapter. What does this passage of Scripture have to do with the chapter we have just read?