Throughout the movie “Band of Brothers”, Captain Sobel can be seen as a faulty leader. Not only does he manage to disrespect his fellow company in almost every way possible, but he also violates his integrity. Thus, this can only mean that this man is not very worthy of his power.
After seeing the clips shown in class, it can be seen how Captain Sobel is flawed. When he first met the troops he would be working with, he was not only critical about the littlest things, but also managed to verbally abuse them. Of course, this was not good for first impressions. Because of what Captain Sobel did, many men probably would not respect him as much as a better leader. In order to gain respect, you have to give it. Next, he made his company hike 12 miles without ever drinking water. Being such a cruel and hard task, it is only human nature that one drinks some water in hopes of gaining the energy to continue on. When Captain Sobel found that a man had drunk some water from his canteen, the Captain ordered him to re-hike the 12 miles without a canteen of water. The whole idea of hiking such a long distance without any water makes it seem as if Captain Sobel does not care whether the men die of dehydration or not. Once again, he is showing no respect towards the men he is in charge of, thus showing his awful leadership. Another thing done by him is the framing of a fellow leader. Lieutenant Winters had recently been promoted, leaving Captain Sobel jealous. Because of this, he planned to make the Lieutenant look bad in front of his company. He plotted to feed Lieutenant Winter’s men some spaghetti, then make them run a couple of miles, while making it seem that the good man in this case, Lieutenant, had planned such a thing. Of course, while the men ran, they began vomiting up what they had just eaten. From this, it can be seen that Captain Sobel could care less about the reputation of those around him.
