Thoughts on "All Quiet on the Western Front"

Himmelstoss returns to the group with reinforcements: he's brought the sergeant-major. However, Tjaden is not in sight and Himmelstoss and the sergeant head off after saying that Tjaden is to report to the Orderly Room in ten minutes.

After the group has played cards for a while, Himmelstoss returns and once again asks where Tjaden is. Kropp asks him if he had ever been there before. Himmelstoss retorts that it was none of his business, and then Kropp points up at the sky and comments on the anti-aircraft and how the new privates ask to 'hop it,' which I assume means to fly an airplane ... directly into a hundred explosions.

In the Orderly Room, a trial takes place in which the events that led up to the insubordination are explained. Himmelstoss gets a long lecture about how the front is not a parade ground, Tjaden gets a sermon and three days' open arrest, and Kropp gets one day's open arrest.

Meanwhile, Paul and Katczinsky go off to find a goose to cook. They find a pair of geese, and Paul tries to capture them but complications occur when one of the geese gets its wind back for a second and a bulldog attacks Paul. Paul shoots a revolver at the dog but misses, and jumps over the wall. While he had been contending with the bulldog, Kat had killed one of the geese. The pair runs off and begin to cook the goose.

After having cooked the goose and eaten some of it, they take the rest to Kropp and Tjaden. Tjaden consumes the lion's share of the rest of the goose and drinks gravy to wash it down.


   I find the chain-of-command theory in the army interesting. If a private is insubordinate and his boss doesn't have enough firepower to take him out, the private's boss calls his boss.
   Another thing that amazes me is that anyone would willingly ask to essentially steer themselves toward their own deaths. It seems like a violation of one of the most basic of instincts: self-preservation.
   The arrest for insubordination and the following immediate theft of a goose seems like a disconnect between action and punishment, and in fact they seem to have a higher opinion of open arrest than they have of being on the front line. Why the entire chain of command doesn't just disintegrate because of this is beyond me.