Recently The Economist used an example about military boots and shoes to explain how complicated and messy the U.S. defense budget is. The article itself is fairly enlightening to the layman if you’ve never thought about defense spending before. The actions of the people mentioned in it, namely the Bates corporation and Congress, reveal that their priorities are profits and campaign contributions, regardless of the needs of the troops or the effects on national security. The Economist did not go far enough in examining military footwear as a case study however. An look at the Army’s ability to produce a Mountain Combat Boot reveals just how bad an idea of a “military trainer” shoe is.

In the light infantry, your boots are second only to your rifle in terms of equipment. We even have an acronym for them. Leather personnel carriers (LPCs) are the primary means of transportation for light infantry troops. Having entered West Point just in time to be issued the old Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) and black boots, my colleagues and I were delighted to switch to the tan boots of the Army Combat Uniform (ACU), not least because they did not have to be shined, but also because of the proliferation of makes and models and different styles of boots and soles. Every person has a different type of foot and stride and the previous issue black boots left few satisfied. That those boots were also pretty terrible didn’t help.

With the new uniform came a variety of boots and before you knew it, our footwear uniformity was shattered, but our feet thanked us.

Secondly, lets talk about injuries. All soldiers, infantry or not, spend a lot of their time on their feet both in their physical training shoes and their ACU boots. It’s pretty well documented that poor footwear can lead to running injuries. Indeed, most shoe companies make at least three different types of shoes for those with neutral, overpronation or supination as well as shoes designed for flat feet, normal arches or high arches. It takes extra gall from Congress to try and force the military into a one-size-fits-all shoe solution that will likely lead to more injuries while simultaneously wanting to cut defense spending and health care benefits.

Speaking of Congress and spending, I think its about time that they start listening to soldiers rather than the various businesses who pitch these so-called “good ideas.” Its time to take quality, not just cost, into account during equipment discussions. As soldiers we’re used to making do with all sorts of cheap tricks and para-cord fixes because most of our equipment is made by the cheapest bidder. Backpacking is one of my hobbies and let me tell you: the difference between the equipment I take out to the woods during the week and the equipment I take out on the weekend is night and day, boots not excepted.

Also, we shouldn’t forget that the U.S. Army is universally bad at acquisition, so much so that they made a Hollywood comedy about the development of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates highlights in his recent memoir the amount of effort it took at the very top levels of the Pentagon just to get MRAPs and ISR platforms into combat theaters at a reasonable rate. Recent highlights of the F-35 fighter and the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship show that this is not just unique to the Army.

The above issues notwithstanding, perhaps an argument could be made that the Army can develop some military trainers that will be superior (or at least American made) to what troops have right now, which is commercial running shoes just the same as you would buy at any sporting goods store. After all, how complicated is footwear compared to a stealth fighter jet?

Unfortunately for the Bates Corporation and the advocates pushing this solution, the Army has recently tried to develop footwear. The results, after millions of dollars spent and over three years of research, are somewhere between an abject failure and to a passive acceptance by the troops, depending on who you ask.

Unlike the military trainers, the idea of which exists only to provide more profits for an American-based shoe corporation, the Mountain Combat Boot started as a legitimate capabilities gap which needed to be addressed. For years, soldiers purchased their own civilian hiking boots out of their own funds or commanders used operating funds to buy civilian hiking boots like Asolo’s for their soldiers. Recognizing this need, the Army started developing it’s own mountain boot around 2009. Unfortunately, this effort was quickly hijacked by the traditional defense boot companies and the first version of the boots reached soldiers about eight years after the war started. Yes, that’s right. The first version of the Army’s Mountain Combat Boot started “trickling” into Afghanistan in the later part of 2009. Actually relatively fast for Defense acquisitions. In fact we used these boots on my deployment to Afghanistan in early 2011.

All I have to say about them is that the only time I wore them was stateside in garrison after we switched to our Mulitcam uniforms and on the flight over when it was commanded that everybody wear the same boots until we got to Bagram. After that I switched back to my regular boots and gave these to the first Afghan soldier that would take them. Other soldiers, even in different units, felt the same way. They were so bad that later on in the deployment I ended up writing a memorandum to the Rapid Equipping Force (REF) in an attempt to get them to supply us with a different boot. Most officers and senior NCOs had already purchased civilian mountain boots, but at $200/pair or more that was a stretch for some of our junior soldiers with families to support back home. The Army responded with this:

Pretty much the exact same boot that we hated, except now in Army approved colors and eight inches tall so that it matched uniform regulations. It turns out that this version of the boot was already in development and REF pushed us the boot that would be issued to the next round of units destined for Afghanistan. Forgive me if we cared more about performance in the mountains of Afghanistan than that it was within uniform regulations.

Two years later, in June of 2013, the Army finally was able to come up with something that actually looks relatively decent and according to the Army design team (a self-interested source at the very least) is popular with Soldiers. Also, their assessment that nothing like this was commercially available is either poor market research, terrible self-justification or a gratuitous reliance of form (uniform regulations specifically) over function. While I don’t have the data to confidently reject their assessment that they’ve gotten good feedback, a friend of mine in currently deployed calls it a Garmont rip-off that falls apart faster. Perhaps we can call this a win because the Army actually managed to get a new pair boots into Afghanistan before America’s longest war was over, but I’d like to think that we can do better than that.

But the heart of the matter is while the mountain boot for Afghanistan was a legitimate attempt to address the needs of soldiers, nothing about the new debate about running shoes is for the benefit of soldiers. This program is simply a craven attempt by uncompetitive companies to improve their profit margins by creating artificial monopolies. I wholeheartedly support buying American products, especially for our military, but I expect American companies to put out a world class product for the amount of money we spend buying it.

Bates, in my honest opinion, should be out of business by now with the terrible products they put out. The only reason I own a pair of their oxford shoes is because for some reason the Army thinks the high gloss “windex” shine looks better than a pair of hand shined leathers. But I still keep my hand shined leather oxfords around for when I want to look good in mixed or civilian company.

You don’t see anybody complaining about all three companies in the mountain boot competition using a Vibram sole even though Vibram is an Italian company. You know why? Because Vibram puts out a world-class product and nobody in their right mind will dispute that.

You also don’t see companies like Mystery Ranch pressuring legislators to provide a monopoly for their products despite being 100% American. That’s because their products are some of the best in the world at what they do and their contracts with the special operations community reflect that.

For anybody serious about saving money in the Defense budget and also providing the highest-quality gear to our troops overseas, footwear is an interesting case study. But years of effort and millions of dollars in investment still have yet to beat the product* that a $5 copy of Backpacker Magazine recommends.

Running shoes are even more diverse products than hiking boots. There is no reason to fix something that isn’t broken. At the same time, the military trainer effort is already wasting taxpayer dollars and ignoring the lessons we should be learning from the Army’s attempt at the Mountain Combat Boot. So-called “military trainers” are nothing but an attempt by Bates to pad their bottom line and use legislation to force an inferior product on America’s soldiers.

*Yes, I know Kayland is Italian. Apparently the only group in the world that doesn’t know Italians make world-class footwear is the U.S. Congress.