Professional Soldiers ® - View Single Post - New Bates Boots

**The Reaper** · 11-12-2005, 12:17

As long as they are fitted properly and are appropriate for the environment, boots are probably 30% of the equation. Socks and insoles are probably worth another 10%. Conditioning is more like 60%. I know guys who wear no socks and can start a 25-mile march with newly issued jungle boots, and do just fine.

OTOH, you can Gucci out all you want with $500 boots, $50 insoles, and $20 socks, but if you do not spend the time breaking them in properly and conditioning your feet to the task at hand, at best, you are just wasting money and will be waiting by the road with your blistered feet on fire for the chase vehicle to pick you up. At worst, you will make the rest of your team carry you and you may compromise the mission and get a teammate killed.

Be smart, if you are a student, buy, break in, and train up in what you are told to. If you are a team guy, you should be smart enough (having gotten there) to pick the appropriate gear, prepare it properly (but not till it is worn out), and make sure that your feet are not the weak link. Yes, I have seen guys launch on deployment with brand new boots as well as those trying to squeeze one more mission out of a favorite pair, only to have them fall apart in the boonies. Everyone laughs at them, or curses them, depending on the situation. Don't be that guy.

Remember, what is on your feet doesn't complete the mission. What is inside them does.

TR

11-12-2005, 12:17	#66
The Reaper Quiet Professional Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Free Pineland Posts: 24,828	As long as they are fitted properly and are appropriate for the environment, boots are probably 30% of the equation. Socks and insoles are probably worth another 10%. Conditioning is more like 60%. I know guys who wear no socks and can start a 25-mile march with newly issued jungle boots, and do just fine. OTOH, you can Gucci out all you want with $500 boots, $50 insoles, and $20 socks, but if you do not spend the time breaking them in properly and conditioning your feet to the task at hand, at best, you are just wasting money and will be waiting by the road with your blistered feet on fire for the chase vehicle to pick you up. At worst, you will make the rest of your team carry you and you may compromise the mission and get a teammate killed. Be smart, if you are a student, buy, break in, and train up in what you are told to. If you are a team guy, you should be smart enough (having gotten there) to pick the appropriate gear, prepare it properly (but not till it is worn out), and make sure that your feet are not the weak link. Yes, I have seen guys launch on deployment with brand new boots as well as those trying to squeeze one more mission out of a favorite pair, only to have them fall apart in the boonies. Everyone laughs at them, or curses them, depending on the situation. Don't be that guy. Remember, what is on your feet doesn't complete the mission. What is inside them does. TR __________________ "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910 De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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