Rico was the one in charge. He is responsible for his squad's safety. He is the one who told Breckenridge to remove his protective helmet during an exercise where live ammunition is being used, which is stupid and negligent. It's like a coach ordering his quarterback to take his helmet off in the middle of a play. Djana who fired the shot fell over and fired by accident. She clearly didn't do it on purpose, while Rico's actions were deliberate. As for it being unsafe, the entire exercise was ludicrously and completely unsafe to anyone with even a basic knowledge of the four safety rules for guns. If anything, the trooper getting shot is the inevitable consequence of the complete incompetence of everyone who designed that exercise. Djana seems to have been immediately kicked out, she might also have quit in shame and guilt, Rico probably was lined up for the same. He was in charge, and confessed to ordering the removal of the helmet. He only got whipped because Zim said he might be redeemable.



This was one of the scenes that they tried to shoehorn in from the book. In the book, Rico was whipped for "in simulated combat, gross negligence which would in action have caused the death of a teammate." In simpler terms, he didn't do an adequate check to ensure that the big explosion he was about to cause wasn't going to kill any of his men before setting off the weapon. In the book, he acknowledges that he knew it wasn't textbook, but he was in a rush to fire the shot. Edit