Soldiers love to be in semi-tropical surroundings! (5)
I believe the answer is:
troop
'soldiers' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'love to be in semi-tropical surroundings' is the wordplay.
'love' becomes 'o' (love means zero in tennis).
'to be in' indicates putting letters inside.
'semi tropical surroundings' becomes 'trop' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'o' put within 'trop' is 'TROOP'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for troop that I've seen before include "Gang" , "Porto (anag.)" , "Proto (anag.)" , "A company of people, soldiers or scouts" , "herd" .)