53 pages • 1 hour read
Joe HaldemanThe Forever War
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Army Private William Mandella sits through a training session, Eight Ways to Silently Kill a Man, or, in this case, a Tauran, a race of beings from the planet Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus. The training sergeant stresses the importance of finding the Taurans’ vulnerabilities. After the class, Mandella retreats to the enlisted men’s lounge, where he reads the news. An Earth ship was “caulked” four years ago, and the military is planning a counterattack, although it will take ships four years to reach their destination. Back at the billet, he snuggles with Rogers, his platoonmate, but he is too tired for anything but sleep.
Chapter 2 Summary
Mandella and his platoon construct a bridge in the freezing rain. After they drop a “stringer” in place, an “epoxy crew” secures it in place. During a smoke break, Mandella and Rogers discuss their pre-military career plans—he planned to teach physics, she studied biology. Both were drafted for their scientific skill to “guard humanity from the Tauran menace” (8). While the epoxy teams finish their work, Mandella ruminates on the history of the conflict. When humanity discovered the “collapsar jump” 12 years prior, the discovery allowed instantaneous travel to remote parts of the galaxy, specifically to portal planets, “little bits of flotsam that whirled around collapsars” (9). When humans used the technology for colonization, they encountered the Taurans, who attacked an Earth ship, provoking a military response. Under the authority of the United Nations Exploratory Force (UNEF), military ships now accompany every colonial vessel, and military training is tailored to a singular purpose: defeating the Taurans.
Chapter 3 Summary
A month later, Mandella’s platoon finishes their training on Charon, a planet beyond the edge of the solar system. The hyperspeed journey, plus the long acceleration and deceleration, wreaks havoc on the soldier’s bodies, resulting in broken bones, dislocations, and extreme fatigue. After landing, the platoon is transported to a military base, where they are debriefed on their upcoming training. Upon completion of training, surviving members will be assigned to Stargate 1, “the largest portal planet” (12), where they will set up a base camp and be prepared for military action. They are then introduced to their immediate superiors, Captain Stott and First Sergeant Cortez, who warn the new recruits that any disobedience is punishable by death.
Chapter 4 Summary
The recruits are then fitted with armored “fighting suits” and cautioned about potential hazards, such as touching a rock of frozen gas with an overheated “exhaust fin.” The resulting explosion will kill them in less than a second. After lecturing them about atmospheric pressure and gravity differences, the armorer calls each recruit to be individually fitted.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The early chapters of The Forever War, told through the eyes of a new army recruit, presage unknown dangers in faraway worlds. The scenes, however, are disturbingly familiar. Despite the references to “collapsars,” “portal planets,” and “Taurans,” Private Mandella’s experience could be that of any young, military grunt in basic training, with the battle-scarred first sergeant, the difficult terrain, and the use of fear to force compliance. Haldeman, a military veteran himself, understands the psychological dynamics at work: the moral questions, the uncertainty, the need to hide behind a mask of invulnerability. While Mandella is not clearly defined yet, his skepticism of authority is apparent. Like so many Vietnam veterans who enlisted willingly and eagerly but eventually came to question the entire war effort, Mandella sees through the military propaganda right away. The official rhetoric is familiar: Saving humanity from Tauran aggression could just as easily be saving the world from communist tyranny. Mandella understands the military mindset, however, and he sees human incursion into deep space as a deliberate strategy to provoke conflict. The similarities are not hard to spot. Just as Lyndon Johnson used the Gulf of Tonkin incident as an excuse to send ground troops into Vietnam, Haldeman’s UNEF uses its colonialist aspirations to goad the Taurans into war light-years from Earth.
Thus far, the members of Mandella’s platoon are anonymous faces known only by their jobs—“stringer,” “epoxy team.” Only Rogers is given a shadow of depth as Mandella’s platoonmate and lover. Military training, by necessity, seeks to erase individuality and blend a group of distinct personalities into a single, homogenous unit. Efficiency and survival, the military would argue, dictate this kind of harsh process. Perhaps the lack of clear character definition so far also reflects Mandella’s own unfamiliarity with his platoonmates. The reader perceives only nondescript bodies because that’s what Mandella sees. Presumably, the heat of battle will bring these characters into sharper focus as the trauma of war coupled with the stress of fighting in the extreme conditions of space reveal their unique and distinct natures.
