The Commandant’s real name

I don’t normally swear, although I can appreciate rougher humor and am not above the occasional innuendo when I’m with people I’m comfortable with. But swearing or cursing someone out always made me feel bad, guilty, or uncomfortable. They’re a person, after all, with human dignity, and I don’t want to be mean or cruel. Bad-mouthing someone in a petty way bothers me, because I should try to be more specific in my criticism, or I hear my father’s voice in the back of my head chiding me for gossip or poor behavior. I’m more lenient towards fictional characters, but much of that logic still holds.

Forget about all that. Screw this woman. You don’t let the ambulance drivers sleep. They need to sleep, so that they don’t drive the ambulance into a ditch or off a cliff because they fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. Four to five hours is not enough with the kind of intense work they’re doing. They drive day and night; they need sleep to function. You’re going to get people killed: not just the drivers, but all the wounded passengers. And you don’t let the girls get the proper training—you send women who have never driven at night before out to take an ambulance out in the snow and ice of a winter night on incredibly poor roads. What the hell are you thinking?
And you’re petty in all the worst ways. You don’t let ambulance drivers get food if they work during mealtime, when the fact they’re doing work means they need sustenance, and you made her work during mealtime. You’ve allowed them to be served food that even many animals would turn their noses up at, because apparently your attention to cleanliness only extends to uniforms and ambulances, not basic food safety. You make them stand for roll-call clean and neat when they should be allowed to rest, or at least not be punished for being dirty when that’s not something they can control. You refuse to accept anything less than your standards of timeliness from people like Helen when they can clearly explain why they didn’t meet your expectations, such as unexpected need for extra cleaning or the longest route. You made Helen do extra chores for needing to warm her hands up. You expect forty women to all have cocoa when there is only thirty cups of it. And you’re just cruel and demanding for its own sake, like in not sorting the letters and goading the girls to talk back so you can punish them for their attitude.
It’s not like you’re following the rules of the army: the girls are supposed to have an afternoon off every week. The girls are supposed to get a probation period to learn to be safe ambulance drivers. There’s probably a million more things, like proper sleep, the women are owed that you aren’t giving so as to be more “efficient” and stroke your own megalomania, as Helen says. Those men you’re supposed to serve are put in constant danger by your treatment of their drivers. And you’ve made the drivers’ lives a living hell beyond just what the war and the sight of the broken, bleeding, dying men was going to do.

I don’t care what your given name is, or what your title or rank or whatever is (you don’t deserve it anyway). Tosh is right. You’re Mrs. Bitch.

One thought on “The Commandant’s real name

  1. THIS OH MY GOSH.
    I’m not in the habit of swearing myself but oh, how I HATE Commandant. I don’t see how efficiency should be at the cost of humanity, morality, and compassion. Because Nelly is still able to be compassionate to new drivers like Paul is to new recruits and it isn’t at the cost of efficiency. And I know people defend her because she might have something to prove as a woman in a position of authority, but when we talk about Himmelstoss, we’re really quick to say he exhibits toxic masculinity, but why aren’t we calling out Commandant the same way? In class we talked about whether or not it was fair for Nelly to ask why Commandant can’t be more compassionate since she’s had children which might at a glance seem mysoginistic, but if you compare it to All Quiet, the men want Himmelstoss to treat them with respect, and Nelly wants Commandant to understand the girls. That’s something I see a lot today–men want respect, women want to be understood (not saying it’s the same across the bord or that the opposite can’t be true, but it is something relatively apparent).
    I also really appreciated how you brought up in class that Commandant is abusive to the point that she is endangering people’s lives. Himmelstoss didn’t do that. He was a glorified drill sergeant, and yet even when he is sent to the front, he is able to go back for Westhus and exhibit a slight bit of humanity. Commandant doesn’t.

    I hate her. So much.

Leave a Reply