Quote Originally Posted by sandbag View Post
I know of a contractor performing work ordered within scope by the KO to pour sidewalks at a FOB. The sidewalk-making was going well and within cost, schedule and performance parameters. Then a senior soldier (we'll keep the rank out of this on principle) decided he needed a sidewalk to his quarters, along with one for his boss. He directed the contractor to perform this. The contractor's on-site supervisor, not having a full command of the language, and doing what DCUs tell him to, begins pouring the extra sidewalks.

Needless to say, confusion, frustration and anger reigned with both the KO and the contractor when the project busted the parameters. Evil, greedy contractor? Not hardly. Government conspiracy? Nope. Apparent authority mis-utilized? Yep.
Being a senior soldier of whatever rank doesn't entitle anyone to get away with stupid actions and doesn't prevent them from doing wrong -- but the system can cope with that; even if no disciplinary action was taken (should have been) he or she could still have been zapped for some funds for misappriopriation.

As long as stupidity like that is tolerated it encourages the idiots in Congress to pass even more dumb laws or others to write even more Regs that penalize the innocent and let guilty doofuses like that slide.

Not to mention Commanders that tolerate idiocy in their name, even if they weren't aware of it-- they should have been -- and don't stop it as soon as it appears as it usually does. That failure just encourage other Doofuses to say "The Boss wants ..." often without a clue to what the Boss might actually want.