Shines the Name!

When I was a young man I was introduced to Robert A. Heinlein's books by Mrs. Seitz, a gentle lady who became my very favorite teacher. I'm sure she was also a favorite of both of my sisters who also attended her classes.

It wasn't the first one I read, but my favorite "juvenile" Heinlein novel was Starship Troopers. The novel helped to shape my views on what a citizen owes to his country. (I should also say "her country" too, because Heinlein also influenced me as to the proper respect owed to women)

In Troopers, a young man, a rich and privileged boy named Juan "Johnny" Rico desires to earn his citizenship and enlists in what Heinlein envisioned the future Marines might become. When it became time to board the assault ship or to return to it from battle, the ship's loudspeakers would play "The Ballad of Roger Young" as a homing signal. RAH mentioned it several times in snippets "....shines the name, shines the name of Roger Young"

I was always curious about who Roger Young was, but couldn't find anything in the meager research resources available to me at that long-ago time. When I got a computer, it was one of the first things I researched.

This is what is on the very last page of Heinlein's classic novel:

Young, Rodger W., Private, 148th Infantry, 37th Infantry Division (the Ohio Buckeyes); born Tiffin, Ohio, 28 April 1918; died 31 July 1943, on the island of New Georgia, Solomons, South Pacific, while singlehandedly attacking and destroying an enemy machine-gun pillbox. His platoon had been pinned down by intense fire from this pillbox; Private Young was wounded in the first burst. He crawled toward the pillbox, was wounded a second time but continued to advance, firing his rifle as he did so. He closed on the pillbox, attacked and destroyed it with hand grenades, but in so doing he was wounded a third time and killed.

His bold and gallant action in the face of overwhelming odds enabled his teammates to escape without loss; he was awarded posthumously the Medal of Honor.

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From a now-defunct R.A.H. fan site:

For Robert Heinlein, Rodger Young stood for that noblest of men--the soldier willing to put himself in harm's way for the sake of his people. Heinlein first mentions Young in 1952, when he recorded his piece for Edward R. Murrow's This I Believe show. Heinlein expands greatly on the theme in 1958 with Starship Troopers, a controversial novel which he freely admits having written in part to "glorify] the military. . .specifically the P.B.I., the Poor Bloody Infantry, the mudfoot who places his frail body between his loved home and war's desolation--but is rarely appreciated." In the story, Johnny Rico serves aboard the troop ship Rodger Young, and we have occasion to hear the boarding tocsin for that ship, a verse from Frank Loesser's "The Ballad of Rodger Young."

To the everlasting glory of the infantry
Shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young

The Ballad of Rodger Young