Learn English – Word or phrase for tasking an expert with jobs that a novice could do

Suppose you hire one of the world's leading heart surgeons only to employ them with bookkeeping or billing at your hospital. You may even be paying a wage that is commensurate with what other heart surgeons make–and he or she probably hired on thinking that heart surgery was what they'd be doing. But you stick them in billing.

I once heard a term for this from a friend in the US Army (I've lost contact and anyway I can't remember exactly whom) where he told me this was common practice. You take a commissioned office who has decades of training and lots of subject matter expertise in some way that might actually, say, help the army if they were smart about it–but they will stick them in charge of filing reports for some outpost or station. Forever.

I'm looking for a short phrase or a single word rather than the using a paragraph or two to explain this concept. For example the army guy said something like: "They had him doing _." (i.e. _ = "a task or job that was far below his training and capabilities and that essentially anybody could do with minimal training (say under two years) and that is a shame".)

Any thoughts?

EDIT: To be clear I want to say that this happens not ONLY to military folks, or people who are near retirement but also to mid-career people who are civilians.