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Fuels Airmen at The Rock pay homage to tradition

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. Burke Baker
  • 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  The word erie isn't enough to describe the scene. One lone combat boot slowly turns as it hangs 10 feet in the air, surrounded by roughly 200 more, dangling from the ceiling of an old, damaged building.

"We've had comments ranging from 'that's very cool' to 'that's kinda creepy' but this is our piece of fuels history," said Master Sgt. Nathaniel Nelson, superintendent of the Fuels Management Flight for the 386th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron.

The fuels flight just calls the structure home. And the boots, they call history.

A closer inspection of the aged and worn out boots revealed each had writing permanently etched into the leather sides. It was a surreal scene to behold.

"These are the boots of fuels troops from the past," said Nelson. "Tradition now holds that you sign your boots, date them, and toss them. If you ring it [on the rebar] on the first try, the legend is that you won't get orders to come back to The Rock."

Intriguing.

"A lot of people on base want to come down and throw their boots," Nelson grinned. "But we don't let them. This is a fuels thing."

It seems that this homage to bygone deployments, while strange, is not entirely unique among the fuels management career field. Fuels Airmen have a long standing tradition of discarding their worn out footwear in hopes of not being tasked to return to a certain desert location.

Although the exact origin of the tradition is shrouded in questionable rumor and speculation, most agree that members of the 4404th Wing Fuels Management Flight originally constructed a hill of retired combat boots in 1992 when the unit was based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The Airmen named it, appropriately although not exactly creatively, Boot Hill. When the wing moved to Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia after the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, Boot Hill moved with it.

When U.S. forces moved from Prince Sultan AB to Al Udeid AB, Qatar in late 2003, a small collection of boots and other assorted items from Boot Hill went with it. The new Boot Hill was set up and continues to serve there today, as a monument to over 20 years of fuels Airmen serving in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.

"From the fuels Museum at Holloman Air Force Base, to Boot Hill in Al Udeid, and our little part we play here, it will all be a part of fuel's heritage one day," said Nelson. "Airmen years from now will look at say, 'when I was stationed at The Rock we hung our boots' while others will say, 'I remember putting my boots on the hill at Al Udeid."  Both could possibly run into a fuels senior non-commissioned officer who might say the same thing, giving the two generations a commonality they both share".

Tech Sgt. Michelangelo Serio, a fuels management Airmen deployed from Cannon AFB, N.M., is on his second deployment to The Rock. He is living proof that the legend associated with the boots may not be 100 percent accurate.

Whether it actually works or not, Serio is proud of the tradition. "It was nice to see that it has persisted, 5 years after I was here originally," he said. "The camaraderie that our career field has is very strong."

Nelson contends Serio must have done something wrong in his performance of the ritual.

"I've been stationed with two different guys who deployed here and their boots are hanging," Nelson contends. "They have not received orders back."

And so the legacy continues, one tattered boot at a time.