Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Fox announced Friday that the Department of Defense will provide military recruits with American-made footwear, rather than giving them a stipend to buy their own training shoes.
U.S. shoe makers and lawmakers from Maine, Massachusetts and Michigan lobbied for the change to preserve some of the country’s few remaining shoe plants.
New Balance Athletic Shoe Inc., Boston, and Wolverine Worldwide Inc., Rockford, MI, have said they could provide 100 percent U.S.-made athletic footwear that meets U.S. needs. Other U.S. firms expressed interest in developing that capacity, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Congress passed the Berry Amendment in 1941 to ensure that American soldiers trained and operated, to the greatest extent possible, with American-made uniforms and equipment. However, since fiscal year 2002, the Defense Department had circumvented this policy by issuing cash allowances to new recruits for training shoes which are not required to be Berry Amendment-compliant.
The new legislation was pushed U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas over the past several years to boost local and national footwear manufacturing.
In a letter received by Congresswoman Tsongas, Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Fox announced that the Department of Defense will provide military recruits with American-made footwear, according to a press release from Congressman Tsongas.
Secretary Fox writes: “I am writing to inform you of a policy change I have directed on Secretary Hagel’s behalf with respect to athletic shoes.
DoD has an interest in having our recruits purchase domestically manufactured athletic shoes to the maximum extent practicable in order to abide by the spirit of the Berry Amendment.”
A summary of Secretary Fox’s directions, according to the press release from Congressman Tsongas, follow:
- Each service will assess each recruit’s foot type and corresponding athletic shoe type, and, working with the appropriate military exchange leadership, will develop a matrix of shoe type options to be made available to male and female recruits.
- If one or more Berry Amendment-compliant shoe models correspond to a shoe type category, only these shoes will be made available for purchase using a recruit’s one-time cash allowance for athletic shoes.
- Massachusetts manufacturer New Balance now produces a 100 percent Berry Amendment-compliant shoe that costs less than the current Army allowance. There is at least one other footwear manufacturing company that can provide a 100 percent Berry Amendment-compliant athletic shoe, and at least five other companies have begun the process to begin making such footwear.
“I applaud the Department of Defense for making this policy change which will require all services to treat athletic footwear like every other uniform item, including boots,” said Congresswoman Tsongas. “The DoD has spent approximately $180 million on the athletic footwear cash allowance program to date, which is money that could have gone to American jobs and manufacturing. Innovative companies, such as New Balance right here in Massachusetts are able to provide our service members with quality products and keep business here on American soil. This policy change will boost job growth, spur economic development and innovation and give the brave men and women of our armed forces better gear. It is a win all around.”
In a statment released by Tsonga's office, New Balance Director of Public Affairs Matt LeBretton said the decision represented a big step forward in rectifying what had been an inequity in the application of the federal law known as the Berry Amendment.
