[danielmryan]

Yes, that was the political background of Starship Troopers. However, Robert Heinlein explicitly said later (and indirectly said therein) that about 95% of "veterans" would be close to what we'd call retired civil servants.

[gogogodzilla]

True, but in Starship Troopers... you couldn’t vote while you were in the service. So the civil service of that novel were not ‘lifers’, but worked for a few years to gain the right to vote.