Army Bans Vibrams While Wearing PT Uniform

The Department of the Army out of Washington, D.C. issued this message last week:

THERE ARE A VARIETY OF MINIMALIST RUNNING SHOES AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AND WEAR. EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, ONLY THOSE SHOES THAT ACCOMMODATE ALL FIVE TOES IN ONE COMPARTMENT ARE AUTHORIZED FOR WEAR. THOSE SHOES THAT FEATURE FIVE SEPARATE, INDIVIDUAL COMPARTMENTS FOR THE TOES, DETRACT FROM A PROFESSIONAL MILITARY IMAGE AND ARE PROHIBITED FOR WEAR WITH THE IPFU OR WHEN CONDUCTING PHYSICAL TRAINING IN MILITARY FORMATION.

Now I wasn't born yesterday. I have been serving in the military since 1985 and have seen a lot of things come and go. I am a Warrant Officer in the Army National Guard and would probably be chastised if I expressed my opinion too deleteriously in this rant.

I need also point out before going any further that I use the Vibram shoes in my weekly training and have taken an Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) wearing them. I do not advertise for Vibram or have any financial interest in their product, unfortunately; they have to be making a mint.

The fact that the Army is even addressing this as an issue tells me one of a couple of things. First, a two-star general tried to make some money out of the deal by contracting with Vibram or advertising and it didn't go over well. Similar to the black beret becoming standard use over 10 years ago under General Shinseki; nobody understood it. Well, there was a little conspiracy theory about a kickback on a contract to a company in the U.K. manufacturing a bunch of those things in China when normally under the Berry Amendment; all uniforms will be made in America. Not to get too far off the point, I think someone might not be happy with Vibram.

There has been a lot of talk about the use of minimalist shoes over the last couple of years and some vague statements issued at times by the Army. Most articles that I seen in places like Army Times and Soldier Magazine were weighted positive about the shoes. They talked to soldiers and researched the theories supporting barefoot or minimalist shoe running. Everyone all around seemed pretty happy and life went on. An official statement was made regarding not using this kind of shoe in basic training and schoolhouse environments and it was left up to the major command (MACOM) of other units to establish their own policy. It was about this time that I had an APFT and decided to use them on the 2-mile run. Nobody gave me a problem. I don't run as fast as I used to but still ran around 11 minutes that day so I felt that I benefitted. Incidentally, my calf muscles were extremely tight the next few days and I had been training in them for several weeks before the test.

All of this leads to the second conclusion that I came to on why the Army even bothers to address this issue. From the soldier's point of view from the field, I mean at the user level, not sitting behind a desk designing the guts of an aircraft without thought of how to access the components once the skin is riveted on or developing a new Physical Training test by watching P90X videos; it seems to us that policies are made by uneducated bureaucrats. I mean uneducated to the problem at hand not necessarily in general. It also appears that some of our leaders in our chain of command hold grudges, are self-centered, and are envious of other's success. For example, I was recently chastised by one of my superiors for running too many marathon events with the National Guard Team. He never once mentioned the fact that I had done an outstanding job with the supervision of my shop and how we met the mission 100% of the time. He didn't even recognize the fact that anytime I left to run one of these races I spent my own vacation time. Not only was I happy but I was enjoying success. So this leads me to believe that some fatbody two star general sitting behind a desk in the pentagon thought he would make his boss happy by finding another thing that the soldier likes and get rid of it or mold it into something unrecognizable. There are self-important people to include professional soldiers in this world, that in order to justify or prove their existence, they develop policies without ever questioning the implications to the rest of us.

Now just when I thought the Army was making some kind of turnaround two weeks ago when the Sergeant Major of the Army rescinded the 10-year old policy of wearing the black beret in the combat green uniform, they issued this policy. I was really optimistic that the next thing we were going to see was a move back to face-to-face classroom training instead of the relentless stream of on-line training we do now. Internet classes at college and university education are one thing, and trust me, I have found many a fault with that. As safety conscious, suicide prevention activist, and homosexual awareness gun-shy as the Army is, you would think they would stress these things in a face-to-face manner. No, let's check the block for doing my job again by issuing a PowerPoint presentation that the Soldier has to read and then sign the mandatory roster promising that he read it. Or better yet, let's put a mandatory test at the end of it so that proves they read the material because they had to pass the test. Soldiers are ingenious as well as crafty. I can't tell you how many times I have been handed the answer key to some of the crap classes we've been made to take. Anyway, I digress again and need to get back to the subject at hand.

Ok, one last avenue of approach. Due to the fact that minimalist individual toe shoes are so popular in the running and fitness community today, and this includes members of the military, why not try to advertise through these companies and find new recruits? The Army is good at spending money through venues like NASCAR and spraying their logo everywhere in order to find recruits. At least by advertising through a running shoe company that everyone wants more of, you will find recruits that are generally fit and can already run and pass your PT test. Instead let's focus our efforts on a recruiting base of alcoholic rednecks with questionable DNA tracing patterns. I know that last statement probably offends some of you but the odds of recruit success and graduating a soldier out of boot camp and being able bodied enough to serve our country are going to come from the fitness base of runners, not from the stereotypical NASCAR fan.

I guess what I'm trying to point out here is that I never cease to be amazed at what the leadership in the Army determines is worthy of spending time trying to fix when it is messed up in so many other ways. If you do the math, you'll find I have 26 years of service. Trust me; I question myself daily as to whether the "internet-velcro Army" isn't just passing me by. Before I leave though, I would like to hand off what I learned in order to make it better.

Happy barefoot trail running!