Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein takes place in the future as humanity fights against “the bugs”. It is written is a first person narrative from a young recruit Johnny Rico. The story begins with him aboard the Roger Young, he is performing a raid against “the skinnies” which are a race allied with the bugs. He flashes back to his high school years where he was a young man intent on joining the military with his friend Carl. Rico joins the Mobile Infantry where he finds himself in one of the hardest boot camps in the world. He barely makes it through training where several of his fellow trainers die while on cap missions but Rico does not seem to lament their death very much.

He finishes training and begins the war itself against the bug planets. There are many “police actions” in which raids against the bugs are made but no official declaration of war has occurred. The war formally begins when a raid from the bugs on Buenos Aires kills millions of people including Johnny's mother. In direct retaliation the Mobile Infantry raid Klendathu, the bug homeland. Unfortunately heavy losses from that very unsuccessful attack force them to taking hit and run missions against the bugs. Rico joins the platoon “Rasczak’s Roughnecks” named after their beloved lieutenant whose abilities to save their lives was uncanny.

He decides later that he wants to go career and begins with officer training which was like boot camp only much harder and with a lot of learning involved. Rico is commissioned as a temporary Third Lieutenant and partakes in Operation Royalty, which was the name of the plan to attempt to capture a “brain bug” which were supposedly the leaders of the bugs. Rico learns that his father had joined the mobile infantry after his wife’s death despite his initial opposition to Rico joining. The novel ends with Rico as lieutenant of the Roughnecks with his father serving with him. It hints at their final victory against the arachnids as they are actually invade Klendathu itself.