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Ditch the green boot

The Air Force search for the elusive sage-green boot continues.

Why?

For more than a year, officials have been looking for a stain-resistant boot that airmen would not have to polish to include as part of the new airman battle uniform. So they came up with green suede, which is hard to keep clean and absorbs jet fuel like a sponge. airmen hated that boot. Now, 200 airmen are to lace up sage-green leather boots in a wear test this summer.

Because the green suede boots have proven so unpopular and impractical, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz relented enough to give leadership of major commands the option of allowing their airmen to wear the black boot with the ABU.

The next logical step is for Schwartz to require everybody to go back to black and kill the hunt for a green boot.

Too much time and money has already been wasted on what increasingly seems like footwear fetish.

Airmen recognize they’re wearing a battle uniform, not high fashion, and they like the black boot.

Schwartz has a fresh opportunity to kill the green boot — and he should take it.

taxpayers want their money spent wisely and their Air Force focused on the big picture. Schwartz faces plenty of real issues: helping fight two wars, growing end strength by 10,000 airmen and overseeing realignment of the combat air forces.

It’s time to stop trying to save the green boot — it just isn’t worth saving.