I just heard recently in AF Times that leadership is considering allowing certain careerfields-maintainers,CE,POL,etc to wear black leather boots with ABU. what does everyone think of that?
Originally posted by PowerProRanger01: I just heard recently in AF Times that leadership is considering allowing certain careerfields-maintainers,CE,POL,etc to wear black leather boots with ABU. what does everyone think of that?
Their reasoning IMO is idiotic at best. Lets spend more money for aestetics. Sage and Desert boots are supposed to be no polish no shine. If they stain and get cut and scratched or even discolored they are still serviceable. I think kiwi got mad at all the business they were losing and demanded we bring back boots that need polish...LOL
Uniform means the same. Why slacken the regs for certain people. If the boots authorized don't match the need of the mission, maybe they aren't the right boots.
Originally posted by caninedale: Uniform means the same. Why slacken the regs for certain people. If the boots authorized don't match the need of the mission, maybe they aren't the right boots.
Thats the problem they meet the needs they just don't look "pretty" when they are done doing the mission.
If you guys had read the article, you'd know that their reasoning is that many fields (maintenance and flighline work) trash their suede boots on a daily basis. Oil and hydraulic fluid stains are quite unsightly on the green suede boots and these airmen are often required to purchase additional pairs just so they can have a serviceable appearance. Having the black leather boots as an option would cut the costs for replacement pairs and hide stains and blemishes that are inevitable. The black boots argument has nothing to do with going back to the spit-shine image.
Originally posted by d8200: If you guys had read the article, you'd know that their reasoning is that many fields (maintenance and flighline work) trash their suede boots on a daily basis. Oil and hydraulic fluid stains are quite unsightly on the green suede boots and these airmen are often required to purchase additional pairs just so they can have a serviceable appearance. Having the black leather boots as an option would cut the costs for replacement pairs and hide stains and blemishes that are inevitable.
Makes sense enough, care to post a link to the article if possible?
I don't have an online AF Times account, but they usually post articles from the previous week on their website. I bet this one will be up in a couple of days.
Well as POL we trash these boots really quick. I don't have a problem keeping them, as long as they don't add that they need to be clean into the reg. It would be much easier to polish black boots than to clean these, if its possible at all. Of course, the entire ABU is a pain to keep clean on the flightline around grease and fuel, can't exactly walk around without your top and not look like a grease monkey.
I don't think it's a bad idea. My green suede boots look like deserts now.
I would just hope that we wouldn't go back to shining. As a comm maintainer - I'd pretty much just wear them when working around antennas or doing other maint. I'd quickly change back into my greens when the work was done. I'd welcome being able to wear black out on the job.
Gone through two pairs of the green boots so far. The last pair were almost black by the time I was able to get permission to replace them.
We are forced to keep two pairs of boots with us at all times. A work pair and then a clean pair that we have to wear off the flightline. It is really annoying that we have boots that show every small scuff and drip of oil. A little JP8 on the boots and they are ruined beyond repair. I am all for easy care boots but these are more trouble then they are worth.
I know that people are having all these issues with the green seude boots. My gripe with the whole situation is that if enough of us refuse to wear them till 2011 then maybe they will get the idea. Or maybe the manufacturer will go broke.
I leave for SERE Indoc next month and thought oh i need to jump on the green boot bandwagon. I went out and bought the Bellville 610 Tactical boot. I am sorry to say that this is by far the worst peice of crap i have put on my feet in five years of service. I paid $110 for these boots and got one week out of them before my feet said enough.
I went out yesterday and bought a pair of Welco Desert boots. These are a duplicate of the old jungle boot, but desert tan. I know that these boots have been around for a while and they get just as dirty but i feel they are a lesser of two evils. I think we need to band together, quit wearing these stupid green boots for three more years, and wait and see if that will change their minds. They obviously didnt listen to those that field tested this uniform. I refuse to believe that the field tests did not bring up these problems. Someone got a star out of this whole new uniform crap.
This is really sounding like a step in the right direction in order to get the physical laborer career fields back on track worrying about the job instead of clean boots. It's a little hard to believe some common sense went into a decision about uniform wear but someone is definately thinking about the right things!
Personally I would like to see them adopt the tan boots b/c I'm already going to look different outside the wire w/ big azz stripes on my sleeves. no need to make it even more obvious to enemy shooters once they take away ACUs when we're working with the Army.
I'm not a maintanier but I work in a maintainers squadron. I think that its a great idea to bring back the leather boots for the maintainers and people that work with that kind of stuff. I think its really idiotic to try and have them keep their ABU boots clean. It is impossible if they work with anything. Every maintainer that I have seen that doesn't sit in an office that has the ABU boots are just about completely black from all the dirt and stuff they deal with day in and day out. Why don't they send out a servy to all the maintainiers even though most of them won't do it because they are busy with their job but the ones that do I'm sure they will say they would rather have the leather boots or black suade like one person said.
Also when they would get the servaays back they would have to expect some kind of dirt or grime on the paper from the mantainers hands. At least if they work in the squadron I do.
Originally posted by eoduder: Just curious for the POL/Flightline folks how your desert boots hold up to the job?
they hide the dirt a bit better, but not as good as black. The black boots were the best as they were easier to care for after a long day. Slap on some polish and role with it.
