After 24 years of military service as a decorated Army officer and Iraq War veteran, an Air Force Reserve commander, and now serving in emergency management with Joint Task Force–National Capital Region, I’ve learned that equipment is only as good as its ability to perform under real-world conditions. In the Arctic, a failed boot is not just an inconvenience. It can become a safety issue and potentially an operational readiness problem.
That’s why the recent Newsweek report of Marines experiencing boot failures during cold-weather training in Norway deserves serious attention. Marines training ahead of NATO’s Cold Response 2026 exercise reported holes forming in their boots, soles separating, and freezing water getting inside. Some Marines had to be pulled from training, and post-exercise inspection found hundreds of additional deficiencies in the same model of cold-weather boot.
While a strong domestic defense industrial base is an important national security asset, we don’t want to find ourselves in a major conflict unable to produce the uniforms, footwear and equipment our service members need because critical manufacturing capacity has moved overseas. Supporters of the BOOTS Act make exactly that argument: relying too heavily on foreign suppliers creates vulnerabilities of its own. But there’s another side of readiness that is non-negotiable.
The equipment has to work to protect the safety of our troops. During my military career, I’ve learned that conditions thousands miles away on the ground almost never match the plans made at home. Commanders need to be able to respond to the environment in front of them, especially when the health and safety of their service members are at stake.
That’s exactly what happened in Norway. When American cold-weather boots failed, U.S. forces used an established Host Nation Support mechanism to obtain locally available footwear. Marines were able to continue training with equipment suited to the conditions rather than waiting for another shipment from the United States.
That’s not a failure of American readiness. Flexibility is part of our readiness. Norway has spent generations preparing its military to operate in extreme cold.
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