Mens Comfort Shoe

[Ron]

While looking for some fishing gear I stored away last year I came across these "boonie shoes". Guess things were to the point where good 'ol uncle sam took drastic action to relieve us paddy stompers of our Immersion Foot & Jungle Rot problems, even to the point of having us wear them out on patrols. That was of course, after we set up our perimeter and removed our boots. Right!
Definitely remember wearing them at Moore and back at D.T. Anyone else remember these simple pleasures?

[Niner Delta]

Interesting item, although I have never heard of them or seen any of them while I was there.


.

[Niner Alpha]

I don't remember any either. Look kinda cheap and flimsy. Look like made in China back when we weren't buying anything from china. Did you have to have something wrong with your feet to get a pair? Why would they be beneficial to immersion foot and ringworm?

[Ron]

Immersion Foot was affecting the troops so much as to see an increase in Sick Call from painful, swollen feet and the discomfort of trying to hump the bush. In order to heal we had to dry-out our feet. Some of us had it so bad that they hat to cut their boots off or walk barefoot to the Aid Station for help.
I remember some years ago that a medical report relating to the Vietnam War showed roll calls were being affected more & more due to combat related conditions in getting about in the Mekong Delta. Someone came up with the idea of curing us faster would be to wear these booties whenever the troops returned to base camps or F.S.B's. I do remember Jim Reeves & Ron Chavez having a severe case of Immersion Foot after coming off patrol. My feet were slightly red and irritated and pealed & itched when they began to dry out.

[Niner Alpha]

I can see now the wisdom now of the few string eyelets and the baggy shape of the canvas. Swollen feet must have been pretty painful.


I think the main cause of the immersion foot was because early on, when you were there, men would be sent out on long operations in mostly wet areas that lasted multiple days ...same as troops in other divisions in dryer areas. By the time I got there in January of 1970 the SOP was short ops and mostly just overnight in very wet areas. There were very few operations of as much as three nights running in the field and none I remember in very wet conditions.

There were exceptions... like the most of a week Alpha spent outside of Cu Chi helping the 25th Division confront what should have been obvious or the time we spent in Cambodia. But both of those operations were in bone dry conditions though.

[Delta75]

I remember some men wearing flip-flops to dry out their feet...but never saw these "comfort shoes".

[RMadewell]

Picture of me horsing around with Wink in the early days of Ben Luc wearing the "comfort shoes". Medic that issued them called them PF flyers.