Doc Jargon: Pulled up by Your Bootstraps

FORT RILEY, KS, UNITED STATES

09.09.2022

Story by Collen McGee 

Fort Riley Public Affairs Office

Dear Doc Jargon,

Why do all the senior NCOs keep saying they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps? First, that’s not physically possible. Second, they keep using the term like it were a good thing. Third, my boots don’t have straps and finally, they keep telling me I have to do it too.
I’m all for taking great advice from Soldiers with more experience. But if I can’t understand the term – I’m going to never achieve whatever they are talking about. I would really like to know what that term means so I can get about doing it.

Sincerely,
Strapless in Second Brigade

Dear Strapless,
The term originated with those little, looped straps on each side of some styles of boots that were used to tug them up. You are correct about being strapless, these loops do not exist on your standard issue combat boots.
The term, “pull yourself up by the bootstraps,” means to improve yourself through your own effort and hard work. It has also crossed over into the computing realm and is the root of the term, “booting up.”
Programmers will load a small amount of code that will assist with getting the rest of the program going.
But for the pulling yourself up version of the language, it was first used in the 1700s as an insult from the aristocracy toward the peasant population. After all, if you pull on yourself, you go nowhere. Back then, you needed a hand from someone in a higher class, a patron, to help you rise above your station.
But the military is a different sort of order than society was then – and it always has been. These days the term is used to mean that you have to take the steps that will increase your rank and responsibility. As you know, promotions are earned through your own achievements. So, when your senior NCOs tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, they are telling you that you have the responsibility for where your steps take you.
I hope you grab those figurative bootstraps and pull yourself up to your full potential.

Signed Doc

• Date Taken: 09.09.2022
• Date Posted: 09.09.2022 17:33
• Story ID: 428960
• Location: FORT RILEY, KS, US