Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War is a science fiction classic.  Both men and women fight in this forever war, and free love is a part of combat service.  Young women have sex with their male comrades through custom and military directive. Really? But there is a least one section where some women seem less than keen to perform their sexual duties.   All this is disturbing.

Later in the novel, all of humanity become homosexuals to curb overpopulation.  This anomaly is later “fixed.”  The characters are "corrected" to become mainstream heterosexuals.  Again, disturbing.

Haldeman was a Vietnam vet, and this novel was supposed to mirror the experience of that war in the future.  Veterans, after traveling at near light speed, return to an Earth they no longer recognize; eventually, the very war they fought for centuries is deemed unnecessary.  Their sacrifice was based on a faulty premise.

Haldeman does a great job depicting the distortions and stresses of war.  Through his skill he is able to depict sci-fi combat in a harrowing way.