#BatesBlowout: Sailors Frustrated With Uniform Shoe Failures Look for New Options

[rangerrebew]

#BatesBlowout: Sailors Frustrated With Uniform Shoe Failures Look for New Options
By: Ben Werner
September 7, 2017 11:21 AM


Just days away from her second son’s due date, uncomfortable in an ill-fitting pregnancy uniform, Lt. Cmdr. Lauren Hanzel, had no idea her pair of black Bates Oxford-style shoes were about to fail during an awards ceremony.

Hanzel hadn’t noticed anything amiss with her shoes, only a couple of years old and carefully stored in a closet when not worn. While she was so pregnant she couldn’t directly see her feet, there was no mistaking where the sad trail of shoe led.

https://news.usni.org/2017/09/07/batesblowout-sailors-frustrated-uniform-shoe-failures-look-new-options

[thackney]

#BatesBlowout: Sailors Frustrated With Uniform Shoe Failures Look for New Options
By: Ben Werner
September 7, 2017 11:21 AM


Just days away from her second son’s due date, uncomfortable in an ill-fitting pregnancy uniform, Lt. Cmdr. Lauren Hanzel, had no idea her pair of black Bates Oxford-style shoes were about to fail during an awards ceremony.

Hanzel hadn’t noticed anything amiss with her shoes, only a couple of years old and carefully stored in a closet when not worn. While she was so pregnant she couldn’t directly see her feet, there was no mistaking where the sad trail of shoe led.

https://news.usni.org/2017/09/07/batesblowout-sailors-frustrated-uniform-shoe-failures-look-new-options

I had this happen to me, but with non-military black dress shoes.  After no longer working in an dress office environment, I had a pair of shoes I had not worn for years.  Put them on for my Mother-In-Law's memorial service.  Walking up to the altar to speak, chunks of my soles are being left with nearly every step.

By the end of the family and friend gathering time in the fellowship hall hours later, little of the sole and heels was left.

I have a ruptured disk in my low back.  If I wear hard soles like leather and wood of traditional dress shoes, I will have a hard time walking after a full day in them.  I cannot function without significant give in my shoe soles, particularly the heels.

[SZonian]

Had a brand new pair of Bates that I had worn one time, stored in the box in a closet and a couple of years later, when I needed to wear them, just unzipped where the upper was sewn to the sole and came apart in other places...I forget how much they cost me, but man was I mad.

[roamer_1]

Blew out my flip-flop, stepped on a pop-top
Cut my heel had to cruise on back home...