Starship Troopers 9

Study Guide Questions for Chapter Nine

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)

Beauty, Legend, Coming of Age

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. At the beginning of this chapter, how many recruit soldiers remained of the original 2,000+ that had begun boot camp at Currie?

2. What was different about the quality of training the soldiers now received at Camp Sergeant Spooky Smith?

3. What did Johnnie say about the differences in style between Sergeant Zim and Captain Frankel?

4. What was different about the “liberty” that soldiers had at Camp Spooky Smith as opposed to Camp Currie?

5. What did Johnnie realize from the moment he “stepped out of the shuttle?”

6. Summarize Johnnie’s thoughts about “girls.”

7. According to Johnnie, why don’t most “merchant marine sailors” like soldiers?

8. What trouble came Johnnie’s way even though he and his friends weren’t looking for it? What was the result?

9. Besides “casualties, deaths or injuries” what was something else that caused “attrition” in the ranks of recruits?

10. What did one soldier (supposedly) ask about Napoleon Bonaparte? 

11. At the end of this chapter, how many soldiers successfully graduated from basic training?

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

1. Why had so few men made it to this part of the training? What should be inferred from this fact?

2. Why might Captain Frankel have taken a more active part in the soldier’s training at this point in the process when he was so aloof before?

3. Why might the men in the bar have decided to attack Johnnie and his friends?

4. Why did Johnnie not want to pursue charges against their attackers?

5. Why might it be necessary for troopers to practice drops into so many different kinds of places?

6. Why were the instructors “gentle” with the men who panicked and refused to get into the capsules when they had been so hard on recruits in the past?

7. Though Johnnie said the story was unlikely to be true, why would the M.I. soldier have asked where Napoleon’s “drops” were? 

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

1. Johnnie said that “Zim did everything with precision and style, as if he were on parade; Captain Frankel did the same thing with dash and gusto, as if it were a game. The results were about the same…” What value is there in having leaders with different styles and approaches to the same tasks? Would it be better for everyone in the leadership of an organization to do things in the same way, or is diversity in their approach a good thing? Explain why you think as you do.

2. The attrition rate of Johnnie’s M.I. basic training cohort was 93%. What reasons might there be for having basic training be extremely difficult to finish (as with Johnnie’s case)? What reasons might there be for making basic training much easier than what Johnnie went through? In your opinion, how hard should the military’s basic training be and why?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Johnnie noted the differences, yet effectiveness, of both Zim and Frankel. Pick two different godly leaders in Scripture and compare and contrast their leadership styles. What is similar and what is different in their style of leadership? What makes their particular style effective?