Army wants to field better Jungle Boots in 2017

Say it isn't so!! The Army wants to get rid of our old friend, the steel soled Jungle Boot!! The Army wants to get upgraded jungle boots to soldiers by March, according to a program manager at PEO Soldier. Soldiers have been enduring missions in the wet, humid Pacific with boots geared toward the hotter, drier environments of Iraq and Afghanistan. The result: soggy, heavy boots.

The Army has been testing new uniform designs over the past year and a half to help soldiers perform in tropical regions, and now officials say they want to take those designs to the field.

Col. Dean Hoffman IV, project manager for Soldier Protection and Individual Equipment at PEO Soldier, said the Army can use the Soldier Enhancement program to find off-the-shelf solutions for equipment problems. "We focused on the Middle East a long time," Hoffman said, but now the focus is turning to tropical environments.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley recently visited the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, where he saw limited user evaluations on jungle uniforms and boots, Hoffman said at the Association of the United States Army conference.

Article from the Army Times