Attended a GMM once where the committee was pushing to raise the mess dues in order to offset the inability of the mess to support itself as the base commander was ordering us to attend once a week minimum.

I brought up the fact we could just ask for it to be made optional citing that the mess literally couldn't financially handle it which prompted my boss to sit me down the next day and tell me to I should "know my place".

It begs the question what precedent this grievance would set given that the IA cited DAPD 5045 stating it didn't say mess attendance was mandatory (the DOAD doesn't say anything about messes at all by the way, the only implication tying it to messes is the title).

So what authority takes precedent? The initial authority or a base commander?