He made a very reasonable request to add a simple safety measure to a system he was in part responsible for, and he was ignored by the very people who taught him to take that system seriously.
How would you expect anyone to react?
Keep in mind the people that he reported the issue to are at least 3 steps removed from the people that change the design. There are the military guys that use the equipment (including his commanding officer), there are the military guys that spec the equipment, there are civilians that work directly for the military that oversee its design, and then there are civilians at a military contractor that actually design it.
I was the last step in that change for a few years - a civilian for a contractor that designed weapons. I would have loved the opportunity to talk to the 'users' to get feedback. It was seemingly impossible due. This was either due to unintentional bureaucracy, or purposeful separation of people for security measures. I'll never know. But it's entirely possible that his commanding officer was completely sympathetic and thought the design was fucked up, but had no idea where to go to get it changed.
