[griffinmahon]

I actually don't think it's much of an ode to war or anything. I go to the Naval Academy like Heinlein did, and when I read the small details of military life and the grandiose calls to serve, I read them as criticisms or as satire.

[notahacker]

As I understood it Henlein wrote the book at a time when he'd just formed a campaign group denouncing opposition to nuclear testing as a 'communist plot', and spent a great deal of time after the book's publication defending some of the book's more controversial ideas and their compatibiity with his otherwise mostly libertarian views

Agree that it might actually read better with a healthy dose of irony, but just as with Henlein's awkward sex scenes, that's not really the intent.