Boot Review: Jungle Combat Boots

Rothco Desert GI - MilitaryBoots.com

After being out of work for a few months at the beginning of last year, I took a job at a grocery store. I work in a couple departments including the meat market. One of the meat cutters recommended that I get boots, because we literally soak the entire cutting room when we clean it.

So I started looking for some inexpensive boots. They had to be black, and I wanted lightweight ones, because my feet sweat a lot. I naturally gravitated to jungle boots, because I was really interested in military desert boots, but they were too expensive for my budget, and the early desert boots were actually tan jungle boots.

Twisted logic, but I also used to like the original boots, because I read and watched a lot about the Vietnam War. So I settled on the Rothco Jungle Boots. I went to the local Army/Navy store, tried on a pair undersized one size per a recommendation online. The boots do not come with insoles, and the inside of the the sole looks like it is made out of paper, so I bought some semi decent Dr. Scholls insoles. I also bought Scotchgard, because - as I mentioned before - I work, at times, in a very wet environment. So through the process, I turned a $41 pair of boots into a $55 pair of boots. Wait! It gets worse.

10 seconds from trashcan

I Scotchgarded the boots, kept them polished, and they lasted about a month and a half.  I do a lot of kneeling, and that broke both soles within a month. I glued both with superglue, and that lasted about a week. So for my next pair of boots, I went to Sears. More on that later.

TO BE CONTINUED