Wall of text incoming:

I'm currently serving, I operate pretty independently and am personally responsible for my own shit. As has been mentioned elsewhere, you never really have only one job in the military. I enlisted and became a jet engine mechanic, then they found out I know a thing or two about computers.

Now I'm also responsible for low level tech support such as helping people set up their email, A+ level repairs, network troubleshooting. In addition I'm responsible for planning the deployment of and implementing two pieces of software (one and interactive technical manual and maintenance tracking system and the other for tracking the issue and receipt of tools). The Air Force calls it a Client Service Admin or Functional Support Admin. Sometimes they're comm troops, sometimes they're guys like me. I'm a gatekeeper between the regular comm troops who are doing the heavy lifting and the guys who think repeatedly mashing the keyboard with a closed fist will make things better.

This is a responsibility I fulfill without much oversight and no blind obedience. I generally sit down, figure out what's needed on my own and if I can't provide it or fix it I call who ever can. If my shit is down it's my fault, I'm slowing down maintenance and I'm expected to bust ass until it's back up again. Through all of this, I have several avenues to suggests improvements and changes to policy.

Now, my primary job is a little bit different. If I train a new kid, fresh out of tech school, then I'm going to ask for a bit of obedience. Basically, he's going to do it the way I tell him to because aviation, especially in single engine aircraft, is pretty unforgiving when it comes to mistakes.

But it's not typically blind obedience. I'll always explain why he's to do it the way I told him. If he just doesn't get it...then we get into do it that way because you're supposed to. And if he fucks up, I share part of the blame as his trainer until such time as he's considered responsible enough to train others as I have trained him. Which happens pretty quickly now days.

However, if I do my part the responsibility eventually falls back on that kid. I had one kid who just could not / would not pass his career development course test. I had him studying every minute of downtime he had on duty. Called him after hours just to ask if he had his nose in a book. The dumb shit failed one too many times and was sent back to tech school and retrained to security forces. Did I catch hell for it? No. Because I upheld my responsibility as well as I could. He failed his.

That's generally how responsibility in the military works. If you see a general or officer get shit on for something that happened under their command it's not because they were expected to micromanage thousands of blindly obedient troops and be solely responsible for the outcome of their work, it's because they failed to enforce a standard, tried to cover some shit up or failed to fulfill some other part of their responsibility. At times when they were doing their part, they typically aren't punished if something does go bad.

The long and the short of it is that blindly loyal troops just aren't that useful. They can't overcome challenges on their own, they aren't flexible enough to adapt to a changing environment and they typically do nothing once they run out of shit to do. You want someone who knows what to do, can improvise if needed and is responsible enough to make sure that the critical functions of their job are carried out.