Polishing Military Combat Boots
By
Chris Greene

Hello everyone my name is Chris Greene today I am going to do a presentation on the art of polishing your military combat boots. The art of polishing military combat boots did not come natural to me, because I had to actually to learn all the Air Force techniques while I was attending Air Force basic training some 30 years ago. While in basic training every Airman had to have their combat boots polished every day prior to the morning formation. The entire flight had to learn all the Air Force techniques to polishing our boots and make them shine like glass so that our drill instructors would not yell at us or pull our 341’s for dirty combat boots. So I am going to share some of that knowledge that I gained 30 years ago and have applied ever since, with you today and also cover some of the materials that you will need to polish your combat boots, the procedures that it takes to shine the boots, and we will also discuss how to get to the final mirrored finish on the boots.
First you will need to purchase a shoe shine kit; I prefer using Kiwi however there is others out there you can purchase that are just as good. The contents of the shoe shine kit normally consists of black shoe polish, a heavy brush which is used to remove dirt, dust and soil from your combat boots, an applicator brush – which will be used to apply the shoe polish to your combat boots, a shoe shining cloth - which you will use to buff your combat boots after you have applied the polish. I also like to include several small cotton balls, a toothbrush and water bottle. When I go to shine my boots I usually like to do it outside or in the garage some place where I can knock off the large pieces of dirt, because they are normally pretty dirty since I work in Civil Engineering. Step one - remove the old polish by pouring boiling hot water over the boot and then take the heavy brush and brush the entire boot to remove as much of the old polish as you can, also knock off as much dirt as you can. If you can’t get all of the dirt off with the brush then take a wet cloth or paper towel and remove the dirt. Depending on how much shoe polish you have on your boots you might have to repeat this step several times. Once this step is completed the entire boot should look non-reflective. The second step in the process is that I insert a water bottle in to the combat pushing out the boot to make it easier to put the shoe polish on. Step three use either the applicator brush or a cloth, if using a cloth wrap it around your index finger making sure that there are no wrinkles in the cloth, apply shoe polish to the applicators and spread a medium to thick layer of polish on the entire boot going in small circles you don’t want the circles too big. Step four take the toothbrush and apply shoe polish to it and rub around the welts of the entire combat boot to apply polish, if this step is not completed then the welts of the boots will stick out like red paint on a white shirt. Step five I take the heavy brush and brush over the entire boot evening out the shoe polish. Step six wait approximately 5 minutes until the polish looks cloudy or a greyish color before you go onto the next step. Step seven once the polish is completely dry, then you will use the polishing cloth provided and start buffing the entire boot removing all of the excess polish. Step eight take the top off the shoe polish can and pour water in it. Step nine then you will dip your cotton balls in the water making sure not to soak them thoroughly and then apply a small amount of shoe polish to the cotton ball and then gently start going in circular motions on the entire boot. I sometimes will just do that to the toe of the boots depending upon what shine I am looking for. Make sure that you don’t put too much pressure while doing this because you can scratch the shoe polish. You repeat this last step several times until you get the mirrored finish on your boots that you are looking for.
So as you can see there is really not a whole lot to polishing your military combat boots. It usually takes about an hour to accomplish depending how soiled they are. The good news is once you get the initial first coat and mirrored finish on the combat boots, the following times will be even quicker to accomplish. So what we have covered today is all of the material you need to polish your boots, such as a heavy brush, applicator brush, polish, cotton balls, a toothbrush and some water. As you can see in the below picture you can get the mirrored finish on your combat boots that you have always wanted.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to listen to my speech.