I'm guessing there's a real possibility of it ending his career, at least as a member of the military.
The competent don't group together, they don't need to. They can take care of themselves.
The former uses their power as a group against the individuals in the latter.
Basically the plot of Atlas Shrugged.
That book?
Maybe the one person who survives the first trip to Mars can practice it.
When you work on ideas instead of personalities you get to do that.
Nobody here tried to disprove my comment. Just a few people starting complaining about a dead woman whose book I mentioned in passing.
They got together and argued, incompetently. Demonstrating the effect I was attempting to illustrate.
Generally about every month or two, a Navy commanding officer gets canned for "loss of confidence in his/her ability to command." They aren't bulletproof, quite the opposite. And leaving out cases of alcohol misuse and/or sexual misconduct, other common causes are things within the IG's purview.
It is too common that such investigations don't even start because there is just one connecting piece of evidence missing.
Leave a paper trail people!
Individual A reports a unique or rare problem. Everyone knows it is reported by person A.
Nothing is done.
Person A reports the problem "anonymously" to some third party, which raises a stink about the problem.
Now everyone knows that person A reported the problem to the third party.
This is why I (almost) never blow the whistle. It's an automatic career-ending move, and any protections are make-believe at best.
I'm not pretending this is some magic ticket to puppy-rainbow-fairy land where retaliation never occurs, but ultimately, how much do you care about your shipmates? I had a CPO once as one of my direct reports committing major misconduct and threatening my shop with retaliation if they reported it. I could have helped crush the bastard if someone had come forward to me, but no one ever did until I'd turned over the division to someone else, after which it blew up. Sure, he eventually got found out, but still. He was a great con artist and he pulled the wool over my eyes, but all I'd have needed is one person cluing me in to that snake.
Speaking from the senior officer level, we're not all some cabal trying to sweep shit under the rug. And the IGs, as much as they're feared, aren't out to nail people to the wall who haven't legitimately done bad things. I'm sorry you've had the experience you've had, but that doesn't mean that everyone above you was some big blue wall willing to protect folks who've done wrong.
Politics is seeping where it doesn't belong.
I am very worried.
Less funny in real life. Sometimes the jizzless thing falls off with impeccably bad timing. Right when things go boom. People get injured (no deaths yet). Limp home early. Allies let down. Shipping routes elongate by a sad multiple. And it even affects you directly as you pay extra for that Dragon silicon toy you ordered from China.
The Navy's careerist, bureaucratic incompetence is staggering. No better than Putin's generals who looted the military budget and crippled his army so they couldn't even beat a military a fraction of their size.
Or with their Member of Congress, who can also go to Big Navy and ask "WTF is going on with my constituent?"
And I say that as a retired officer.