Sometimes the regulations are so rediculous that they get people killed or injured. In which case you break the rules and suck up the punishment.
That can be true. In fact, I found myself in that situation a few times. Thankfully, the higher-ups were like minded. I wanted to include that in my initial reply, but I couldn't come up with the words at the time.
As you wrote, you have to suck up the punishment. Saying "but everyone else does it!" is not the way to go. I imagine that most NCO's would not accept that response from one of their soldiers/airmen/Marines/sailors, so they shouldn't use it themselves.