Robert Heinlein - Starship Troopers

In a mixed ship, the last thing a trooper hears before a drop (maybe the last word he ever hears) is a woman’s voice, wishing him luck. If you don’t think this is important, you’ve probably resigned from the human race.

The Tours had fifteen Naval officers, eight ladies and seven men; there were eight M.I. officers including (I am happy to say) myself. I won’t say “bulkhead thirty” caused me to buck for O.C.S. but the privilege of eating with the ladies is more incentive than any increase in pay. The Skipper was president of the mess, my boss Captain Blackstone was vice-president — not because of rank; three Naval officers ranked him; but as C.O. of the strike force he was de facto senior to everybody but the Skipper.

Every meal was formal. We would wait in the cardroom until the hour struck, follow Captain Blackstone in and stand behind our chairs; the Skipper would come in followed by her ladies and, as she reached the head of the table, Captain Blackstone would bow and say, “Madam President … ladies,” and she would answer, “Mr. Vice … gentlemen,” and the man on each lady’s right would seat her.

This ritual established that it was a social event, not an officers’ conference; thereafter ranks or titles were used, except that junior Naval officers and myself alone among the M.I. were called “Mister” or “Miss”—with one exception which fooled me.

My first meal aboard I heard Captain Blackstone called “Major,” although his shoulder pips plainly read “captain.” I got straightened out later. There can’t be two captains in a Naval vessel so an Army captain is bumped one rank socially rather than commit the unthinkable of calling him by the title reserved for the one and only monarch. If a Naval captain is aboard as anything but skipper, he or she is called “Commodore” even if the skipper is a lowly lieutenant.

The M.I. observes this by avoiding the necessity in the wardroom and paying no attention to the silly custom in our own part of the ship.

Seniority ran downhill from each end of the table, with the Skipper at the head and the strike force C.O. at the foot, the junior midshipmen at his right and myself at the Skipper’s right. I would most happily have sat by the junior midshipman; she was awfully pretty — but the arrangement is planned chaperonage; I never even learned her first name.

I knew that I, as the lowliest male, sat on the Skipper’s right — but I didn’t know that I was supposed to seat her. At my first meal she waited and nobody sat down — until the third assistant engineer jogged my elbow. I haven’t been so embarrassed since a very unfortunate incident in kindergarten, even though Captain Jorgenson acted as if nothing had happened.

When the Skipper stands up the meal is over. She was pretty good about this but once she stayed seated only a few minutes and Captain Blackstone got annoyed. He stood up but called out, “Captain—”

She stopped. “Yes, Major?”

“Will the Captain please give orders that my officers and myself be served in the cardroom?”

She answered coldly, “Certainly, sir.” And we were. But no Naval officer joined us.

The following Saturday she exercised her privilege of inspecting the M.I. aboard — which transport skippers almost never do. However, she simply walked down the ranks without commenting. She was not really a martinet and she had a nice smile when she wasn’t being stern. Captain Blackstone assigned Second Lieutenant “Rusty” Graham to crack the whip over me about math; she found out about it, somehow, and told Captain Blackstone to have me report to her office for one hour after lunch each day, whereupon she tutored me in math and bawled me out when my “homework” wasn’t perfect.

Our six platoons were two companies as a rump battalion; Captain Blackstone commanded Company D, Blackie’s Blackguards, and also commanded the rump battalion. Our battalion commander by the T.O., Major Xera, was with A and B companies in the Tours’ sister ship Normandy Beach —maybe half a sky away; he commanded us only when the full battalion dropped together — except that Cap’n Blackie routed certain reports and letters through him. Other matters went directly to Fleet, Division, or Base, and Blackie had a truly wizard fleet sergeant to keep such things straight and to help him handle both a company and a rump battalion in combat.

Administrative details are not simple in an army spread through many light-years in hundreds of ships. In the old Valley Forge , in the Rodger Young , and now in the Tours I was in the same regiment, the Third (“Pampered Pets”) Regiment of the First (“Polaris”) M.I. Division. Two battalions formed from available units had been called the “Third Regiment” in Operation Bughouse but I did not see “my” regiment; all I saw was PFC Bamburger and a lot of Bugs.

I might be commissioned in the Pampered Pets, grow old and retire in it — and never even see my regimental commander. The Roughnecks had a company commander but he also commanded the first platoon (“Hornets”) in another corvette; I didn’t know his name until I saw it on my orders to O.C.S. There is a legend about a “lost platoon” that went on R&R as its corvette was decommissioned. Its company commander had just been promoted and the other platoons had been attached tactically elsewhere. I’ve forgotten what happened to the platoon’s lieutenant but R&R is a routine time to detach an officer — theoretically after a relief has been sent to understudy him, but reliefs are always scarce.

They say this platoon enjoyed a local year of the flesh-pots along Churchill Road before anybody missed them.

I don’t believe it. But it could happen.

The chronic scarcity of officers strongly affected my duties in Blackie’s Blackguards. The M.I. has the lowest percentage of officers in any army of record and this factor is just part of the M.I.’s unique “divisional wedge.” “D.W.” is military jargon but the idea is simple: If you have 10,000 soldiers, how many fight? And how many just peel potatoes, drive lorries, count graves, and shuffle papers?

In the M.I., 10,000 men fight.

In the mass wars of the XXth century it sometimes took 70,000 men (fact!) to enable 10,000 to fight.

I admit it takes the Navy to place us where we fight; however, an M.I. strike force, even in a corvette, is at least three times as large as the transport’s Navy crew. It also takes civilians to supply and service us; about 10 per cent of us are on R&R at any time; and a few of the very best of us are rotated to instruct at boot camps.

While a few M.I. are on desk jobs you will always find that they are shy an arm or leg, or some such. These are the ones — the Sergeant Hos and the Colonel Nielssens — who refuse to retire, and they really ought to count twice since they release able-bodied M.I. by filling jobs which require fighting spirit but not physical perfection. They do work that civilians can’t do — or we would hire civilians. Civilians are like beans; you buy ’em as needed for any job which merely requires skill and savvy.

But you can’t buy fighting spirit.

It’s scarce. We use all of it, waste none. The M.I. is the smallest army in history for the size of the population it guards. You can’t buy an M.I., you can’t conscript him, you can’t coerce him — you can’t even keep him if he wants to leave. He can quit thirty seconds before a drop, lose his nerve and not get into his capsule and all that happens is that he is paid off and can never vote.

At O.C.S. we studied armies in history that were driven like galley slaves. But the M.I. is a free man; all that drives him comes from inside — that self-respect and need for the respect of his mates and his pride in being one of them called morale, or esprit de corps .