The military has a parallel system of officers (managers) and enlisted/NCOs (sort of ICs).

Even generals will have an NCO reporting into them whose job is to speak to the frontline and figure out wtf is actually going on.

e.g. The Sergeant Major of the entire US Army used to post on /r/army. If someone in the 950,000 person bureaucracy was really getting screwed, he or his office would step in.

https://reddit.com/user/sma-pao/?sort=top

Don't NCOs have a very hard ceiling of promotions and compensation which ends around lowest rungs of officer levels?

Ehh. The SMA post is too disconnected to play an ear-to-ground role. Always felt more ceremonial or focused on soldier quality-of-life issues that didn’t really matter.

The real conduit for change in the military is a good stiff Congressional or IG complaint. Ask anyone who drove an MRAP.