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>You might be thinking of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, which
>was pretty much written as a rebuttal to Starship Troopers.

Possibly, but Forever War was also an open critique of Vietnam, it's been a while since i read it, so I don't recall whether Gryph's synopsis is it or not - I think I do know the book he's talking about...is it "Armor" by...dude what was that guy's name....

Something by David Drake maybe, in the Hammer's Slammers series??

Either way, the core argument of ST that scares people and brings up the whole "fascist" critique about it is the idea that in order to have political enfranchisement, citizenship, you must have served in the military. Non-citizens don't seem to be lacking for any rights or privileges other than the right to vote and therefore make policy. There's something of a Greek "civic militarism" to use the dreaded Victor Davis Hanson phrase, in the book.

How meta is this though: when I was a zoomie, we had a philosophy class in the core curriculum...one that was a bit based on the "History and Moral Philosophy" class that makes up parts of the book.

Our assigned reading: Starship Troopers :)

We were in a class more than a little inspired by the book we used a class text, with an instructor who was a retired Navy O-6 chaplain, who had been an enlisted Marine grunt in Vietnam...

That's about the time that space-time started falling all to pieces for me.... :p

"David Hume, could out-consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel....." - Monty Python