Commandant, commander of a single place or body of men, such as a military school or training unit, or of a larger organization such as a naval district in the United States.
He'd had all the right assignments--chief aide to the Marine commandant, Marine division commander and then, in 1997, military aide to Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Butthings soured for General Jones when Donald Rumsfeld took over the Pentagon.Rumsfeld's self-importance and arrogance inflected everything, Jones concluded.
At the opening of World War II, he was commandant of the U.S. Army Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia, and he later commanded the 82nd and 28th infantry divisions.
The rank of a commandant depends upon the size and importance of his command: in the British Army a colonel commandant is the senior officer of a regiment; in the French Army a commandant is the commanding officer of a battalion, a rank equivalent to major; and the commandant of the United States Marine Corps is a four-star general.
Subsequently he held a variety of commands in the Atlantic and in 1747 was named commandant general of New France in effect, governor-general of Canada.
In front of him was the car of Rudolph Höss, the commandant of the infamous concentration camp.
"In the speech the deputy commandant gave when a new transport came in, he would say: 'If anyone thinks of doing something stupid like escaping, let them know this: we will kill 10 people for each person who escapes from a work group or [housing] block.' It was like a cup of cold water hurled over my head".
The mechanic had picked the Steyr 220 – the fastest car in Auschwitz, there for the sole use of the commandant.
Or perhaps mad theory three an army commandant had fired off an anti-tank missile by mistake, which had crashed through the window of the presidential bedroom.The French courts never worked it out, and in 1999 acquitted Mr Denard for lack of evidence.
You could offer the same anecdotes about nationalised telephone monopolies, nationalised railways, nationalised airlines (remember British Airways before privatisation, and the camp commandant style stewardesses, barking orders at cringing passengers?) True, some countries are better at public services than others.
The action has been moved from ancient Rome to a modern republic at war, revealing the play as a contemporary battle drama and political thriller.Mr Fiennes, who is known for chilly roles such as the Nazi commandant in "Schindler's List" and Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter films, stars in his directorial debut as Caius Martius, a Roman general whose victories earn him the name of Coriolanus.
