Frostbite, before the toes were cut off. (Corbis)

Feet in hot conditions

Where the climate is very warm then sweating encourages the fungus, which we all have permanently on our feet, to overcome the natural balance and become noticeable. At best this itches and at worst it eats your foot away or makes the skin crack and bleed. I have experimented successfully with wearing strong sandals in hot dry climates when sand is not a problem. These work so well because the gaps in the upper allow a free flow of air to keep your feet dry and fairly cool so the fungus doesn’t grow, while the strong sole still protects your hard, dry feet very well. Africans often wear ‘Thousand Milers’ which are a sandal made with a sole cut out of a car tyre. Sandals do work well when there is no sand and they keep your feet dry and healthy, but strong boots give a soldier a feeling of security.

In very sandy conditions wearing sandals allows sand to get between your toes or between your feet and the sole of your footwear and this makes your feet bleed – so sandals are not such a good idea here. Canvas boots work quite well in this situation as they offer some of the ventilation advantages of sandals but keep the sand out. If you can’t get them you may have to stick with leather boots or ‘Desert Boots’ made from suede. In this case keep your feet clean and dry so far as you can with extra washing, sock changes and powder to kill the fungus.

Feet in wet conditions

The worst thing for your feet is water. Have you ever sat for hours in a bath and seen your feet go all crinkly? Soaked wet feet fall to pieces when you walk on them. The skin flakes off and leaves raw flesh. Dry your feet whenever you can. In wet jungle conditions you may just have to put up with it. And with the leeches that get in through the lace holes. In very wet conditions it may be best to wear canvas boots which dry out quickly but frankly there is no real answer to the permanent wet of, say, a swampy jungle and the only thing to do is keep the time spent there as short as possible. Of course, that is a planning matter and not down to the men at the sharp end.

Encouraging the men

Except in jungle conditions or extreme cold, bad feet should be considered malingering and self-inflicted wounds. Sometimes it will be a miserable soldier trying to work his ticket home and sometimes it will just be depression de-motivating them. On active service, with some soldiers in some conditions, the mind can ‘forget’ to deal with personal hygiene tasks while it is either bored stupid or concentrating on other matters. The offender should be punished severely to encourage the others. For everyone’s good.

If you don’t take care of your feet they will get sore. And you would not be laughing if I had anything to do with it. (US Army)

Blisters

Where I have spoken above about frostbite and rotting feet I was warning you about what can happen in the extreme conditions you may sometimes have to operate in. What every soldier will have to deal with are blisters. Blisters are bubbles of fluid, which form on any part of the foot where the skin has been rubbed too severely against the boot through the sock. A self-protection mechanism of the body then causes the surface of the skin to lift and form a bubble filled with clear fluid or blood. Blisters are the body’s own best effort to stop you doing whatever is causing injury to your foot.

The best way of dealing with blisters is to avoid them. Keep your feet dry so the skin stays strong, wear well-fitting boots with stiff soles, so they don’t rub as they flex, and take advice on the best combination of socks available. Technology is progressing in these things like everywhere else and some socks now slide to protect your feet. Above all, harden your feet with plenty of marching during training when sore feet don’t matter.

Whatever you wear your feet will rub as you walk. By regular long marches your feet will become harder and blisters rare. If you do plenty of marching in your chosen combination of boots and socks then the boots will mould to fit your feet and your feet will gradually build up thicker layers of skin where there is any friction.

In the old days soldiers used to piss in their boots to make the leather pliable and then wear them laced up tight until they dried so that they moulded to the foot. I have done this myself – and the wimpy alternative of soaking boots overnight in a bucket of water – both of these tricks work really well with new leather boots. Boots fit better nowadays straight from the Quartermaster or boot-shop but the principle of getting boots that fit well still applies.

If, during a long march, you sit down and take your weight off your feet any blisters will fill up with fluid and make the next few miles uncomfortable. If you take your boots off in mid march then, if the blisters are bad, you may not get the boots on again without draining the blisters. In the South African Army we used to do long marches on hard roads carrying a lot of weight – 70lb or more. To deal with blisters we were issued with syringes and a bright red anti-septic fluid based on iodine. When you got a blister you sucked out the fluid with the syringe then injected the red fluid into the sack. This made strong men hop around but it killed the nerves in the area and allowed pain-free walking for a while. Very practical people the South Africans.

If you don’t have this facility slice the blisters with a blade, dry the area with powder and cover with a plaster or duct tape. It’s not a perfect solution but it will get you through a march with less discomfort than doing nothing. It is a fact that in all areas of life human beings differ. Some people are taller, some fatter and some cleverer. Some people have tougher skin on their feet than others so they get fewer blisters and their feet, once hardened by marching, stay harder for longer. My own feet are pretty soft and once hard go soft quickly so I have to take special care of them. Life just isn’t fair so you play your cards the best you can.

I once knew a guy from the French Foreign Legion who would never use soap on his feet as he believed it softened them. He washed his feet in plain water every day. I don’t know if this was useful or not but it shows how important a professional soldier considers his feet to be.

Blisters are never, ever an excuse to quit a march. They only sting a little and you should keep going. Certainly no real soldier would ever think of stopping for blisters. And as far as Special Forces units are concerned, a mate of mine ran with pack and rifle for 7 miles after breaking his hip on a rock in the snow. It was on selection for the SAS – the part called the Fan Dance where you run over the mountain Pen y Fan twice lugging a heavy pack – and the staff failed him for being 5 minutes too slow. We don’t want wimps in the Special Forces do we?

RIFLES

Goal: When is the right time to employ this weapon? What is it good for?

The military rifle is only designed to do one thing: kill other human beings – and it does this both effectively and selectively. The fact that it can be used as a threat to keep the peace may be thought of as a bonus. Although in the past the rifle was the main way to kill the enemy in bulk, today mass destruction is best achieved by air assets or artillery and you use a rifle either to protect yourself, kill the enemy in small numbers or when you cannot use bombs or artillery to destroy a city or camp for fear of harming civilians.

Though you may use different weapons in different conditions, the rifle remains the best way we have of applying concentrated force to kill the bad guys and leave the good guys, and the women and children, alive. The idea is that the infantry soldier, or the Special Forces operator, gets close enough to see an enemy doing something wrong, or being in the wrong place, and, by means of their rifle, terminates their activities permanently. This explanation may seem strange to you. Think about it alongside what you will learn in the rest of this book.