I first met the Saffi family in 2010 I was in Afghanistan doing a series on building the Afghan military and NATO’s training mission was keen to show off the Milli boot factory.
Colonel John Ferrari, then the deputy commander for programmes of the training mission, said supporting the Milli boot factory was part of their Afghan First programme.
"One of our goals is to make the Afghan security forces sustainable over time, and that means that the Afghan economy and the Afghan people can support their security forces," Ferrari said.
Family patriarch Ihsan Saffi agreed.
He first started making boots in Afghanistan in 1979.
He and his family fled Afghanistan when the Taliban took over and they returned in 2002. His equipment and factories were destroyed.
But, he decided to rebuild, and in 2010, he told me the reason was simple.
![[QODLink]](http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images/2012/5/22/201252212352677734_16.jpg "Click here for our coverage")
