Well, this is something surprising. Our people in the Arctic are having major issues with a piece of their standard gear, and it’s not pretty. The item is damn near impossible to work without in the Arctic environment. It’s strange and not exactly embarrassing to our troops, but it is for the manufacturer.
Their boots are literally falling apart. It’s not everyone, but it’s enough to be concerning. They can’t do exercises outside without boots. Even the thought of it should make us cringe. What happened to this item that they are falling apart? No idea, and that’s not good. It now requires inspecting every pair to weed out the bad ones and make sure the good ones get to where they need to go. Too bad we can’t blame Hegseth for it.
Does our military need to check out *everything* they use to make sure everything else is ok? Or can we consider this a one-off and assume everything else is okay? Boots are bad enough. We hope that the rest of their gear is fine. It may be doomsaying, but. But…..
Appreciation for Raw Story:
Holes opened in the leather, soles separated from the boots, and freezing water seeped inside while Marines crossed snow and ice carrying heavy packs. “Enormous sets of issues started coming up,” an unnamed Pentagon official told Newsweek. Some Marines were pulled from the field after their soles peeled away or plastic in the heels dug into their tendons, the official said. Norwegian-made replacements were eventually obtained locally, including pairs purchased from nearby stores.
But it was wider than that:
But the problem extended beyond the exercise. Inspectors later examined 4,423 boots at Camp Lejeune and found 538 defective pairs. A military presentation reviewed by Newsweek called the April results “an alarming rate of defective pairs.” “It said the follow-up inspection in July ‘revealed a substantially higher incidence of defects, indicating a notable deterioration in product quality between the two inspection periods.”’
How about dem apples? That’s not just a problem. It’s a *major* problem. Every base should inspect their boots. How about the people getting scorched in the Middle East? Sand and dirt can be a problem, too. But, of course, it shouldn’t have happened at all. The vendor is replacing the boots one for one. Let’s hope they go down their assembly line and figure out what happened to correct it. Replacing the boots is great, but it doesn’t address the cause.
It’s something to consider. That’s all. Just extrapolating (guessing) about concerns for other places and other people. When you wear or use something, you have to NOT be concerned about a problem. And yes, extremely likely Denis would be able to explain this better. But I’m trying.
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Back when I was on active duty (the 1980s) our boots shined up really nicely but us grunts (infantry) had problems with the standard issue boots because the soles didn’t really meet the needs of marching miles upon mile, sometimes on quite rough terrain carrying all our gear and weapons. What did we do? The first weekend we took one pair of the two we’d been issued in boot camp to a local shoe shop in either San Clemente or Oceanside and paid out of pocket to have thick Vibram soles put on them. The next weekend we took our other pair so we’d have at least two pair of boots that wouldn’t tear up our feet. Many (if they had the cash) bought a brand new pair of boots that had the same leather but with Vibram soles already on them. Since I have big-assed feet I couldn’t avail myself of that option as sizes in local stores topped out at size 12. But boy I would have and once I was able to wear the thicker soles my feet thanked me every freaking night! I’m sure Army grunts went through the same shit. We wanted to buy and wear the boots our troop handlers had, the ones with mostly canvass uppers that breathed better and reduced the issues that would too often be seen during foot inspections. Eventually, long after I left active duty the military went from issuing boots that would shine up pretty in boot camp and started providing sensible footware.
We had it hammered into our heads to carry extra socks (again, we’d buy extras out of our own pockets) so we could change into dry socks periodically during the day. It might seem silly but your feet take a beating if you’re a grunt and even under the best of circumstances issues come up! As for being in Arctic weather with boots falling apart it pisses me off to no end. It’s nothing more than a contractor cutting costs by reducing quality of what they provide and those motherfuckers should be prosecuted for fraud – promising in a contract to provide a critical item that meets certain specifications and setting up manufacturing that doesn’t meet those specs and pocketing the money they save, or more accurately STOLE by fucking over troops.