Is somebody higher up in your chain of command allowed to tell you what you should support or not support?

DAMN, life must be crappy for troops today. may times my XO, platoon daddy would knock on the door and have a beir. they went as far as removing their 'rank' read shirt and place it on a bunk. many times the XO would sit a play backgammon till the wee hours. Top was the same, hey Top, got a minute? guess its all on the situation your in, I was a line wrench in a Armor unit in Germany in the 80s.

As a fellow NCO, I believe your instincts told you that interaction was inappropriate, and that as a leader, you quietly stepped in to remind your colleague of this fact. I hope the situation wasn't simply left there.

Tell them respectfully that you don't agree. If it is Unethical, Illegal, Or it is against the law. Stand Down but you should know the law.

That NCO is si far out of his lane he is driving in oncoming traffic

It depends is he out of regs wearing them? If so he was well within the limits if not the nco could be in trouble!

No.

no

Not unreasonable to infer the comment was politically based. He didnt repl the Soldier not to wear red or blue shoes again. He didnt tell him not to wear running shoes when he should have had on other appropriate footwear. He told him not to wear a specific brand of footwear. If, in fact, it was based on the specific brand, the NCO is an ass and needs retraining, or other corrective action.

The Junior Enlisted should file charges against the NCO.

Soldiers are forbidden to wear certain items of clothing that could be deemed to subscribe to anything that could be in contravention to established law or that would bring discredit or demeanor to others but I don't think the Nike brand would fall in any of those categories. The NCO who issued the order to remove the shoes was clearly in the wrong but the order itself could probably not be considered an illegal order by definition so the soldier being given the order should probably follow it and lodge a formal grievance against the NCO through his/her command channels. If that doesn't work, lodge an IG complaint outside his/her chain of command.