Anyone who has been trained in simple ME planes during N-1 ops knows how after a few minutes Yr "life engine" leg starts trembling and later shaking. Keeping the Yoke pulled full aft for an hour is close to impossible.
If You have never sat in a C-130, You can't question if they could not reach the pedals. The PF had been taxiing and braking, so he must have been in contact with them.
Sure, pilots are mostly the last link of an accident chain, that does not mean the other links go free. The pilots are mostly the result of an organisation's procedures, training, doctrine, and more. If they fail, the organisation has failed.
Some difference here with commercial pilots and military pilots. The first ones may have had a long career spanning several companies. Maybe pop and mom charter or flight schools where they may have learned wrong things.
Most of the time military pilots started from scratch and stayed with the military their whole career.