education before officer's school in Starship Troopers: plot hole?

Question

In Heinlein's Starship Troopers, the main character (Juan Rico) enlists in the military shortly after high school graduation:

Graduation right after that and three days later my birthday, followed in less than a week by Carl's birthday ... [we met] the day after his birthday and ... went down to the recruiting office together. (Ace Books 1987 paperback edition, p. 25)

Later, after several years in the military, a fellow soldier is suggesting that he go for officer training. He (the fellow soldier, 'Ace') says:

"... I've got no education and I'm ten years older than you are. But you've got enough education to hit the selection exams for [Officer Cadet School] and you've got the I.Q. they like." (p. 127)

Juan has been in the Mobile Infantry for the whole intervening period, with no mention in the book of any education or training other than boot camp.

Ace says he has "no education" (and is therefore not qualified for OCS), but that Juan has "enough" education. Is the suggestion that Ace has less than a high-school education, and that Juan's high-school education is sufficient for OCS? (One other OCS cadet is described as having "a B.S. in math on his eighteenth birthday", but there isn't any other discussion of educational requirements.)

Answer 1

Here is a frame challenge.

The OP says that Juan Rico seems to have ended his formal education with high school, and yet has enough more education than his friend Ace that Rico can go to officer's school and Ace can't. The OP can hardly believe the possibility that Ace could have entered the military without completing high school.

Why would someone in the year 2022 believe that Heinlein writing in 1958-1959 would assume that a military of the distant future would require a high school diploma to enlist?

When did having a high school diploma become necessary to enlist in the US armed forces? It wasn't during the 19th century when there were many teenage and younger drummer boys in he army and first, second, and third class boys in the US navy. I think that if I mentioned the ages of the youngest 19th century recruits in the US armed forces, most people here would find it unbelievable, more like science fiction than history.

It wasn't a requirement in the US Navy in World War Two. Calvin Leon Graham (April 3, 1930-November 6, 1992) was an elementary school student when he enlisted on August 15, 1942, aged 12 years, 4 months, and 12 days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Graham

Of course a boy who could pull off such a big lie about his age might have been able to pull off an equally big lie about his education.

This site says:

During the enlistment for the war, young boys had to be at least 17 to be allowed to join. At 16, one could join with a parent’s consent, but 17 was still preferred. However, Graham was undeterred. Along with two of his friends, he forged his mother’s signature on his enlistment papers, stole a notary stamp from a local hotel, told his mother he was going to visit relatives, and lined up.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/calvin-graham

If 17 and even 16 year olds could legally enlist with the permission of their parent's I doubt a high school diploma would be required, since only a small minority of boys that age would be high school graduates.

There is a book about underage US soldiers in World War Two:

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1210&context=etd

And that should say whether a high school diploma was a requirement for enlisting them.

Dan Bullock (December 21, 1953 – June 7, 1969) was a United States Marine and the youngest U.S. serviceman killed in action during the Vietnam War,1 dying at the age of 15.

When he was 14 years old, he altered the date on his birth certificate to show that he was born December 21, 1949. He processed through the recruiting station, and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on September 18, 1968

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Bullock

The article does not mention whether he also forged a high school diploma or it was not necessary.

And of course a lot of rebel and guerrilla groups after World War Two have started using teenage and pre teen kids without high school diplomas as soldiers, now that modern assault rifles are so light weight. And it is possible that Heinlein, someone concerned about Communist guerrillas, was already aware of that as early as 1958.

As a science fiction writer Heinlein could easily imagine that in some possible futures warfare would be so complex and scientific that nobody could be accepted into the military unless they had a PHD in science and were over 30 years old. But Heinlein didn't intend to write such a story, since Juan Rico and his friend enlisted soon after high school graduation and their eighteenth birthdays.

So clearly Heinlein decided that a high school diploma would be sufficient eduation to be enlisted in his future. Did Heinlein think that a high school diploma would also be necessary for enlistment, or did he imagine a future where educational requirements would still be as low as they were in the 1950s?

Answer 2

I believe you're reading "education" in a different way than Heinlein intended. Ace doesn't have "enough education to hit the selection exams" - he may have done enough to graduate from high school, but he didn't learn as much as Johnny did.

Heinlein is distinguishing between passive completion of education requirements, which both Johnny and Ace have accomplished, and actual learning, which Ace believes he has not done (while Johnny has). By this reading, OCS doesn't have any prerequisite other than a HS diploma - but does require that the applicant actually have learned the material the high school is intended to teach (it's clear from the book that you don't need to pass History and Moral Philosophy to graduate from HS).

Answer 3

Possibly

The central principle of the Terran Federation's system of government is commitment and civic virtue. In order to become full citizens and thereby receive their franchise, individuals must serve a full term of enlistment in the military or something military-adjacent (such as the Terran Federation's equivalent of the Civilian Conservation Corps.) This serves to prove their commitment to both the rest of society and desire to vote. This is due to the Federation's founders' sentiment that,

A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not.

From this point of view, education matters very little; the only thing that matters is commitment to the common good. Therefore, there is no enticement to enlist; the only difference between citizens and non-citizens are the rights to vote and wear veterans' ribbons (although even the latter is contentious). In fact, the Federation goes to great pains to ensure that everyone knows the extent of hardship and self-sacrifice (both guaranteed and potential) involved in earning citizenship. Those who do enlist are given every chance to back out, up to and including an almost complete lack of consequences for desertion outside of combat.

As a natural consequence of its obsession with civic virtue, the Terran Federation guarantees that all people can serve, so long as they can understand the oath. They mean this quite literally; for example, the medical examiners at recruitment centers are legally prohibited from failing candidates. If someone comes in with a severe disability (such as being totally blind and wheelchair-bound), the Federation will find some way they can serve their term (even if that means "[c]ounting the fuzz on a caterpillar by touch".) Thus, it is possible (and indeed probable) that there are members of the Terran Federation's armed forces who do not possess a high school education.

That said, Ace is part of the Mobile Infantry. Compared to today's military, they are what we consider "special forces": small, highly-trained units given high-quality gear. In light of this, Ace is almost certainly not stupid; otherwise, the government would have put him in some other role. He just does not have sufficient education to enter the more academically-oriented officers' school.