Bill Warnock's War Story #1: Brown Boots

Image via Google 1950's combat boots from Etsy

War Story #1. The beginning of a new era in the American military’s art of land warfare.

What color were soldiers’ boots before 1960—in the Korean War and World War II (WWII)?

They were brown. Those were the days of the Brown Shoe Army. But those halcyon days were coming to a close. No more Ike Jackets, Sam Brown Belts, Pinks and Greens, or TWs (Tropical Worsteds). The curtain was about to rise on a new dawn.

But nothing happens very fast in the Army. We always hurry up and wait, much to the chagrin of the young and exuberant. It would be decades before a change that began at one extreme of a soldier’s anatomy reached the opposite end with the demise of the venerable steel pot.

I was in ROTC at the dawn of this new era. Still young and exuberant. I was wild-eyed with curiosity over being granted hands-on experience with things we’d only played at as boys or seen in the movies. In class, an old sergeant was teaching us the workings of a 50 caliber machine gun. Just as he was telling us to be very careful with the recoil spring, I wasn’t and mine sprang across the classroom. I guess I made his point.

As restless as I was and eager to participate in this new era, my conservatism told me to be calm and realize that nothing got the way it was in the Army by accident. A lot of smart people had worked and toiled, and gone through hell to get to where we were. Still, it was agony to be patient.

In 1960, between my Junior and Senior years at the University of Connecticut, I had to attend ROTC summer camp at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Upon reporting for duty, we lined up at the supply room to draw our field gear in preparation for our rugged training. For me, this was a highly symbolic event, a key milestone in the ushering in of the new era: we were each issued a pair of brown combat boots and a bottle of black dye!