Honestly, it raises the stakes sharply now because Touri now has to keep her distance from someone that assaulted her, Weldie will seemingly cover up for the guy and try to act like nothing happened, and political interests are now intent on keeping the kid alive least the unit gets hell put down upon them. Without Weldie dying in a way that can be truly construed as "war casualty", who knows what this Ravana can cause? So now the drama is effectively internalized in the unit beyond just "innocent characters die or get traumatized".
Also thinking about the commander's comment early in the chapter, it actually makes kind of a messed up contrast: here's a guy openly saying something lewd towards her but she knows he doesn't give one damn of an intent about it because she knows how he operates, and then here's her "comrade" keeping his thoughts to himself she can't understand that ends up crazy enough to attempt to attack her and then blame her for rejecting him. Sergeant's comment is misogynistic but it ironically ends up proving him the less fucked up one in this regard for now.