Always wondered about this because officers like Lt's are supposed to be Officers and higher up in the chain of command than Sgt's like Sgt Barnes was, yet Lt. Wolfe allows Barnes to give people orders and be sarcastic and control the men instead of controlling Barnes and disciplining him openly, could have demoted him in rank and maybe placed O'Niell in charge of Barnes and the men after Elias was killed too.
shareWolfe was an incompetent coward who thought that Barnes knew what he was doing and trusted him even if he may not've agreed with him.
shareBecause Wolfe was a 2nd Lt. 2LTs don't stand up to Staff Sgt's.
You are taking a dump and they call GQ do you pinch it off or finish your business?
Wolfe was a rookie and incompetent, but he had enough brains to see that Barnes knew better.
shareHow can a shiny new 2 El-tee know more than a hardened Sergeant who's been in the bush for a year. If I was the El-tee I'd make Barnes my right hand man and at the right time show my men I'm not a coward. No sense in gettin' killed in the Nam the first few weeks.
Shall we play a game?
Formally, he is of higher rank but he lacks Barnes' experience and personal force. Perhaps he is also afraid of being fragged.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."
LT was out of his element and should have been in the rear as a supply or logistics officer, something that was nonthreatening. Putting clean-cut Lt's with hardened and uneducated Sgt's from poor backgrounds was too dangerous.
shareThe idea is that the LT is given the formal textbook training, and the sergeants have the experience training. A smart LT recognizes his noncomms expertise, and ideally combines it with his own training to make the orders. This should make an LT somebody the sergeants can pass the torch of respect to and take orders from, thereby allowing other soldiers to listen to the superior officer and not just ignoring him for the men they already trust.
Wolfe was a wimp who refused to take charge. In most places, it's disrespectful to dress down a person in front of his men, but in Barnes case, with his already belligerent attitude, Wolfe should not have taken him aside to discipline him, but exerted his authority on the spot. Barnes ego clearly needed to be deflated a bit even at the cost of courtesy. Fortunately, this didn't happen as Wolfe was also an idiot who would have screwed up that ambush even more.
Admittedly, all my knowledge is textbook, but that's what I've always gathered as the ideal relationship between the veterans and the new officers. Feel free to teach me if I'm wrong.
Because Wolfe for one thing had no backbone and secondly knew that Barnes was the one keeping everyone alive.
"I really wish Gia and Claire had became Tanner" - Honeybeefine
Near the end, he gets told Barnes is missing and might be dead. His expression is hard to read - possibly "Damn, we're all dead if they even got Barnes" or "maybe this is my chance to get out from under Barnes". Probably irrelevant because he gets killed shortly after.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."
I think he was thinking "damn we're all f-cked", he had a perfect chance to "get out from under Barnes", all he had to do was back up Elias and Barnes would have been court-martial-ed.
"I really wish Gia and Claire had became Tanner" - Honeybeefine
That is the more likely of the scenarios but he was afraid of Barnes as well as dominated by him, and there was perhaps an element of relief in hearing of his disappearance, mixed into the alarm which would probably be the dominant reaction.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."
I think that Barnes was a veteran Sgt and battle hardened survivor of the war, he had been in a lot of battles and was a warrior and ruthless, Wolfe was just a new officer right out of OCS and was doing his first tour of duty in the field, he was the equivalent of a Private and had never killed anyone before or been in combat at all yet, he was younger and very inexperienced and Barnes was an older man and had killed a lot of Vietcong in battles.
I think that Wolfe was in over his head and knew that Barnes was a proven leader, Wolfe had the book smarts and training but not the hands on experience, Barnes had the proven combat skills and leadership needed to lead men in battle, the men would follow orders from Wolfe but did not respect him yet, Barnes was feared and respected, so logically Wolfe hid behind Barnes and allowed him to control things.
Now if Wolfe had decided to order Barnes around and try to dominate him then things would have been interesting, Barnes might have resisted his orders and undermined him or just ignored him, not a good conflict of interest, that could have been worse.
Barnes was probably capable of fragging Wolfe if the latter had stood up to him to any significant degree.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."