According to an article in the Townsville Bulletin Soldiers marching in this year’s annual ANZAC Day parade suffered numerous blow outs. It seems that the spec was changed on the black dress boots to a glued rather than stitched soles. During the march in the pavement several Diggers lost their soles. Townsville is like Australia’s Fort Benning and the celebration is big, so something like this garners national attention. Granted, the issue has only affected black boots which are only worn with dress uniforms and the issue was rectified, but Soldiers still had not received the proper footwear prior to the event.
We contacted readers in Australia who confirmed that they also saw this at other ANZAC Day parades but the men soldiered on without missing a beat. We don’t have anything quite like ANZAC Day here in the US. It’s what Veteran’s Day probably was like after the War to End All Wars and ANZAC does have it’s roots in the memory of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps troops who served the empire in World War One. One of the most reverent experiences I ever had in the military was honoring ANZAC Day at a sunrise memorial service at Ali al Saalem airbase in Kuwait in 1998. It’s unfortunate that the Digger’s boots fell apart during such an important event, but what is even more unfortunate is that they fell apart at all.