A-
Starship Troopers, on the surface, seems to be a tale of patriotism and duty. Careful readers, however, will pick up an underlying sense of military propaganda. And in the middle there are readers who will notice the propaganda but still appreciate the patriotic message.

They're all wrong.

Starship Troopers is actually about racism and stereotypes. Johnny, a Philipino human, spend his childhood years on the streets of LA, running drugs for the big dealers (this is implied in chapter 2). He would hide packets of cocaine in his prosthetic goiter and then skulk from south-central LA to the rich northern suburbs. Oftentimes, whilst making a drop, he would be stopped by the bug police and questioned, simply because he was a minority who happened to be walking briskly in a rich neighborhood. Sometimes they'd do more than ask questions; they'd beat him. Just because he was a Philipino.

The beatings would stop over time. When Johnny was 14, he was forced to stop running drugs. Many of his friends stopped too. The illegal drug trade dried up when Walmart came to town. No one could beat their Always Low Prices and friendly service. And with a smiley face sticker awarded with every 10 grams, it was impossible for the smaller dealers to compete. Even the mom-and-pop PCP houses had no choice but to shutdown (see secret Appendix 1B).

Johnny's direction in life immediately changed. Without drugs, he had to find a new method of income. That's when he met Carl. Carl was an electronics junkie who was attempting to create a sort of electronic device that could be used to rip-off slot machines. Within a month, they had produced what they'd hoped was a working prototype. But when they went to Bug Vegas to test it out, they were denied admittance because they were a minority (see Extended Edition chapter 1011).

With all his illegal sources of income dried-up, Johnny was forced to mooch off of his wealthy father. Because of the racism that existed in the outside worlds, he had no choice but to be a spoiled rich kid in the suburbs. But his day would come, he knew it.

When Johnny turned 18, he enlisted in the army. He didn't care what his father said, he was going to do it anyway. It was his destiny. Why? To kill! Years of abuse and turmoil pent up inside him... he had to seek revenge, to do to the bugs what the bugs had done to him, except worse. Because of the bug cops who stopped him on the streets of LA... kill! Because the security guards at the bugs-only casino... kill kill! Kill them all, with extreme prejudice and a side of coleslaw.

So there you have it, the true purpose of the story. A story about a young boy, abused early on, only to become a supercharged killer set out to destroy those who wronged him. Racist acts of hatred are returned with ever more intense acts of hatred. The cycle never ends.

I end with a quote, as Heinlein seemed to do often:

Everyone else is dumb. ROFL!
                                      --Voltaire

It doesn't relate.