From what I have seen anecdotally, quite a lot of military jobs exist for the sole purpose of taking veterans from active duty retirement age, when they become

From what I have seen anecdotally, quite a lot of military jobs exist for the sole purpose of taking veterans from active duty retirement age, when they become no longer directly useful to the chain of command, out to civilian retirement age, between 60 and 70 years old. Sometimes they are employed gainfully; other times it amounts to a sinecure. So bona-fide government jobs are created for those folks, who oversee, advise, or consult for all those private-sector companies that work mostly on government defense contracts. Those are the very people who end up telling a bunch of undisciplined geeks how they should be doing their jobs. All those TPS report cover sheets go to them. They have to work really hard to ensure that nobody is ripping off the government, in exactly the same way you have to watch your waiter at the diner like a hawk, to make sure they don't give you fewer french fries than you are entitled to, or put ketchup on your hot dog, or something. They can't do the job, but they pretend like they can make someone else do the job better, mostly by staring at them without blinking, and making the "I'm watching you, buddy" hand gesture. The reality is that the geeks should be the ones hired directly into the government jobs, but they can't get them, due to hiring preference points. And also, because the pay scales are locked, and cannot compete in the open market.