If you started a new job with a retired 0-6 as your regional manager, how would you handle being embarrassed in front of them?

There is so much good advice in this chain. The most important thing is to use the audit as your baseline. This is where you started. When is the next one and be ready. Now you never mentioned what kind of business this is and that is critical. Is it a high turnover business or a business that requires a lot of training. Particularly inside training that you can't necessarily pick up somewhere. Usually these are structured organizations. This is critical. High turnover organizations (much like fast food) can find replacements easily and thus they can afford to lose folks. On the other hand organizations that require specialized skill or a significant amount of internal training to do the job usually don't want to lose employees once they have trained them or recruited them. Recruitment takes a lot of time and resources and in some cases the skill set you are looking for might be in high demand so the competition to recruit is tough. Bottom line once based upon your can answer to what type of business then know that if it is the latter it is going to take more than one mistake or series of mistakes for them to fire you.
Now with that background review the other advice in this chain. Develop a plan of action based upon a review of your audit. Will the next audit be an annual event around the same time, or quarterly or how frequent. Prioritize the problems you had with the audit and focus on a plan to correct them that addresses how critical they are. Secondly learn how your function fits into the overall organization. If you are an information producer then find out who uses it and for what purpose and if that product is in turn used by someone else. If it is a sales organization then learn the product . It would appear that some of your co workeres are co workers in the basest form of the term (i.e same office same company) Spend some time studying them you might even look at your audit and see what they do in terms of the same areas. Some will do those things well some not so much. By the way they are still there. Learn from the good ones.
I worked defense and some years you moved from contract to contract. It used to be common to say I am a systems engineer who currently works on x or with company x rather than I work for company x as a whatever. Because of the nature of the beast you might move more often than your counterparts. Given that I always tried to move to a job where I only knew how to do say 75% of the task and I would learn the remaining 25%. As a result I was always growing as opposed to some you will meet who have 1 year experience 20 times over. This should apply whether you move or not Always grow and grow toward a goal you establish for yourself. Some end point or near term goal.
Finally no matter how good you are you will make mistakes. Everyone does. Learn and move on. Good Luck. It will all start coming together.

Prior military service should have nothing to do with it, but you can't dismiss the fact that we are molded by our experiences and military service, especially a military career, is a major influence in our lives. It's entirely possible that this manager is the same person he was in the military. Personally, I found many O-6's to be paranoid. All were eligible for retirement (or, at least, close to it) and fretting over whether or not they should hang around and earn a flag (general or admiral). Many, but not all. Others were damn fine officers. That being said, officers are leaders, not managers, and don't make the transition well. Others do. Bottom line is that none of this matters to your situation. You need now to deal with civilian managers as a civilian. Get over the issues of yours and his military service and focus on what is really happening. That's where you'll find your answers...

There are not many details in your narrative. Yes it stings to be held responsible for discrepancies you haven't had time to fix.

When I was given command of a company, My CO asked me to join him and his XO at the club for a beer right after the ceremony. It turns out, during the change of command ceremony, a couple of my Marines rolled a CUCV on a security patrol route where their top speed was supposed to be 10mph. 15 minutes after the change of command, I am locked up in front of the CO in a one-sided discussion about the CO's disappointment in my current performance as a company commander. Had I deflected any part of my responsibility and accountability, it would have been the shortest command period in history.

My first question; were you canned or disciplined? If not, you were not thrown under the bus. You were gifted a thorough understanding of where your area stands, and what auditors look for. In a position of significant responsibility and accountability, your area of responsibility and your level of knowledge and training should be audited almost immediately.

It may be that the reason you were hired is because the person who held the job before was incompetent, or a new position was created, precisely because of the problems noted in the audit. An audit completed before your arrival is not nearly as informative to you and your seniors as an audit upon your arrival. Do you now have a clear understanding of what needs to be corrected, or not? Assume that management knows you just got there, but DON'T bring it up yourself as a defense. If you won't accept responsibility in the first second, you should have the job.

Imagine a different scenario. You've been in charge for a year+, without a thorough audit. Then you are audited, and the same discrepancies are found, because you didn't know. That is when discrepancies reflect upon you. Trust me, in the civilian world, you will never be adequately trained. unless you take charge of your own training.

I've been audited. I've been an auditor. Here's my best advice. When an auditor shows up, have a thorough and complete list of the discrepancies you are aware of. Don't hide anything. No one really expects you to be perfect, but self awareness goes a long way. Also have a written, detailed course of action for how you want to fix it. It shows they hired the right person. Make a separate set of lists 1) What you can fix with organic assets. 2) What you will need in the way of support from other departments, and 3) What you will need in the way of support external to the company. Also, when you think you have a problem, and you think you clearly understand the problem; present what you've got to the auditor, even though you aren't due an audit. Just tell them you'd appreciate a second set of eyes that are not so close to the problem.

That is easy to answer. You simply say "I'm new, I just started (whenever ago) and I am just learning my duties under the guidance of ( whomever) give me a little time and I will have all aspects of my job learned and under control." It embarrasses no one and lets them know you are making the attempt to learn the job since you are new. If anyone expects a new hire to know all aspects of the job right off the bat then they expect to much from their people and aren't a good company to work for. No need to be embarrassed we've all been the new guy/ lady.

He really did you a favor. You've got nowhere to go but up. Your course is laid out. Bring your branch or office up to snuff and show how your being there improved the office. As far as your "peers" are concerned, first they are your coworkers and you can prove your worth by correcting what they screwed up.

Sgt William Biggs
You started a new job...then they were not auditing you they were auditing the people there before you? You were not thrown under the bus but they made a statement of fact...you were new to the position, and as such, lacked training. Continue to improve. You should have a fairly low bar for the next audit, that would be looking at your accomplishments.

Whether he is a retired 06 or not shouldn't come into the equation. He could have been a crappy 06. What matters now is his style of leadership you are going to have to adapt to. Show him a plan of action to get right. Then execute the plan. Flawless Performance erases embarrassment. Trust me, I know...

The 0-6 was awesome. He went out of his way to help me. The peers I have is what got me