Could Wolf get broken by war? In the same way Barnes is?
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Don't think so.
Frankly, this is nowhere confirmed, but, read between the lines, I have reason to believe Barnes was plenty broken even long before the war; like, there was no point in time when Barnes was happy-go-lucky and unpolluted by an inner darkness, I think --- as I said in the past, he strikes me as the type who had such a difficult and rough upbringing by default that he was already several types of shattered and jilted by the time he should've been a fresh faced, hopeful Cherry on his basic training and first tour. See, I don't think he ever had it good and that by extension, ironically, made him a prime candidate to be a soldier (and an effective killer) in the first place; Severely impoverished, undereducated, born and bred around gun culture and the culture of intergenerational military service in the boonies of the Deep South, the lack of opportunity or upward mobility, no viable jobs, maybe even rampant alcoholism, levels of incarceration and hopelessness among the menfolk, some isolated mountain community cut off from the rest of the world where god knows what went on and you've got a recipe for a very bitter and resentful eighteen year old Barnes who already had a chip on his shoulder day one. What Vietnam did to him later was only adding to the heavy, dyed-in-the-bone baggage that was already there, making his circumstances fully unique. That man arrived in-country already some type of broken.
Wolfe?
Wolfe on the other hand gives off the impression of someone who had enough privilege to get sent out to some prestigious military academy and learn about war and the hardships of war rather than actually suffer any day-to-day hardships himself --- everything bad about life he ever saw was only detailed academically in books and encyclopedia and societal problems were like a distant, abstract thing most days to the degree that even when he's actively in Vietnam, boots on the ground, landing a position he had a diploma and the rank for, but not the actual experience or the grit, he isn't actually fully processing the severity of the situation and everything around him. Why's that? Because unlike Barnes, Wolfe's upbringing and life before the war was one of infinitely more cushiness and by extension, safety, which is exactly why he can never be as broken as his Sergeant, seeing as how Wolfe probably still hopes for something in his slightly air-headed, waspy naiveté (Maybe the war ending more or less non-eventfully, a promotion, sucking up to enough people that he smoothly flies under everyone's radar, appeasing a pushy family with high standards and expectations by serving to completion irregardless of how badly he does it? Who can tell.) and Barnes, in his infinite cynicism, hopes for nothing except perhaps, for victory, being entirely nihilistic and as such, infinitely more dangerous.
Key difference is; these two weren't raised the same.
How they view the world and react to it isn't the same either.
