Many people believe that incompetent bastards are weeded out during the course of military training-- that it should be a point of pride that the Perisher has a 25 percent failure rate and that most recruits fail and sometimes die during SEAL training.
Heinlein appears to be one of those people.
The regiment had started with 2009 men; we graduated 187—of the others, fourteen were dead (one executed and his name struck) and the rest resigned, dropped, transferred, medical discharge, etc. Major Malloy made a short speech, we each got a certificate, we passed in review for the last time, and the regiment was disbanded, its colors to be cased until they would be needed (three weeks later) to tell another couple of thousand civilians that they were an outfit, not a mob.
The reality might be that this training selects for people who take drugs and cheat
Verhoeven is under no such illusions; the point of such stories is to create an esprit de corps. If the soldiers believe that they are the best of the best, they’ll be the best cannon fodder they can be.
