Military officers are still pretty vulnerable. GS-15 and SES bureaucrats can be completely incompetent, dishonest, and even crime and still keep their jobs. Misuse of gov. vehicles, travel, breaking into a secure office, negotiating horrifically bad contracts, steering contracts to future employers, starting false investigations against employees, negative actions against military reservists, and the list goes on. The only demotion I have seen was a 14 that blatantly sexually harassed a secretary. He was an only demoted. Any other employers would have been fired.
Its a shame but then again in 2 years I wont give a crap, looking at Moving to Texas and hopefully getting into offshore oil rig business from the bottom up, you can say this is my last government job.