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.

Solution 1:

Busywork is a general term for this, but doesn't quite capture the disparity between his abilities and assignment. Link-MW

The military has many colorful, pithy expressions for this sort of thing. "Counting dolphins", "piloting a desk", "interrogating the snow", etc.

Solution 2:

I agree with @Linl-MW. You could also say he is overqualified for his work. Or that he is stuck at a backwater station.

Solution 3:

If someone is put out to pasture, he is forced give up some responsibilities.

Example: Have any of you ever seen a manager put out to pasture in a company? In such a state of uselessness, he creates makework for himself and others, and becomes a very petty person to work with.