“This is the valley where I learned empathy,” says Matthew “Griff” Griffin, a former Army captain, holding a photograph of a procession of Army Rangers winding their way through Afghanistan’s snowy Korengal Valley.

In November 2003, Griff and his Ranger platoon deployed to the valleys north of a forward operating base (FOB) now named after one of Griff’s fellow Rangers, Sgt. Jay Blessing. Just one week after this photo was taken, Blessing was killed during an IED attack, the first of many that their unit — part of the premier light infantry unit of the 75th Ranger Regiment — would have to endure.

Their objective in Korengal was simple: Deny al Qaeda fighters safe haven in the high-altitude villages of Kunar province. But rather than operating from a static network of FOBs, the Rangers had to venture deep into remote, mountainous territory for weeks, living off the land.

“We drove trucks as far as they could go, then rode helicopters as far as they could go. Then we started walking,” Griff says. Their unit had to climb thousands of feet, incurring dizzying disorientation and high fevers.

On one frigid morning, another Ranger in Griff’s unit, Spc. Donald Lee, kept guard on a dirt road, sick with a 102-degree fever. As he stood shivering, two young Afghan girls walked over and, without hesitation, handed him the contents of their small arms: goat milk chai, warm naan, and a jar of marmalade. For Lee, the moment was life-changing. It was then, Lee says, that “God threw me a life raft.”

During those weeks patrolling the snowy peaks of Afghanistan, Lee and Griff saw the hardships of life in that country, a life oppressed by violence and poverty. “Once you see this kind of poverty, you can’t unsee it,” Griff says. “And you feel compelled to help.”

Six years after their deployment ended, Lee and Griff discovered a way to help rebuild the Afghanistan they left behind.

The idea for their company, Combat Flip Flops, started with a trip Griff made to a Kabul boot factory in 2009 while on a mission supporting the Afghan National Army (ANA) combat medic program. The factory specialized in producing combat boots for the rugged terrain of Afghanistan; a thriving business, it was a precious oasis in an otherwise commercially destitute region. Owned by a local family, the factory had become the economic backbone of the community, employing more than 300 people; each employee’s salary was supporting anywhere from five to 13 family members.

While he was at the factory, Griff spotted a boot sole with a flip-flop thong punched through it, sitting on a barrel. “It was the ugliest and coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says.

The shoddy flip-flop was a practical solution in an environment of scarcity. In a Muslim country where people pray five times a day, the repetitive act of removing and donning heavy combat boots is tedious and inconvenient. So, local Afghans created a kind of hybrid footwear: shoes that were easy to slip on and off with a flip-flop top, but with the soles of combat boots.

A pair of Combat Flip Flops rests on a machine gun. Photo courtesy of Combat Flip Flops.

That’s when Griff says he had his “light-bulb” moment. Two years later, Griff and Lee founded the Washington state-based Combat Flip Flops.

The macro goal was ambitious and expansive — to build a commercial alterative for conflict and post-conflict zones, particularly Afghanistan, where state-sponsored solutions failed to provide a sustainable model for peace and development. Griff and Lee planned to import raw supplies from China directly to their manufacturing facility in Afghanistan, which would produce finished goods for distribution in the United States. To finance the initial setup, the two men invested their own personal capital. “If it had value, we sold it,” which included everything from his guns to his motorcycle, Griff says.

Utilizing word of mouth and social media campaigns on Twitter and Instagram, by March 2012, Combat Flip Flops had received roughly 4,000 pre-orders. However, it wasn’t long before Griff and Lee hit the first of many early obstacles. When U.S. President Barack Obama announced in June 2011 that U.S. forces would withdraw from Afghanistan by September 2012, international donors quickly abandoned the country. Consequently, the Kabul factory Combat Flip Flops relied upon received notification of its pending closure in May 2012 as the Afghan First Initiative ended abruptly. Although the Kabul factory had managed to produce 4,000 pairs of flip-flops before closing, they were all defective — riddled with imperfections and tears, adding to the company’s woes. Determined to fill the pre-orders, Griff partnered with another Kabul-based factory, but that factory closed before delivering a single order. By early December, Griff and his team had purchased a new supply of raw materials from China, yet possessed no manufacturing capability.

Undeterred, Griff set up a makeshift factory in his garage in Issaquah, Washington. And for four months, the Combat Flip Flops team — comprising family and friends — labored daily from 5 a.m. to midnight, funded by Griff’s personal credit card. Recalling that first treacherous year of Combat Flip Flops, Griff laughs. “We know our product down to the glue!”

But in February 2013, Combat Flip Flops finally caught a break. Griff attended MAGIC, a trade show in Las Vegas, where he struck a partnership with Vice Royalty, a trade consultancy representing Colombian manufacturers. To Griff and Lee, Colombia, like Afghanistan, fit their company’s vision of helping conflict and post-conflict countries develop through sustainable trade. Additionally, with Colombian manufacturers who believed in their company’s mission, Combat Flip Flops would gain the manufacturing capability it desperately needed. By August 2013, the company’s Colombian manufacturers produced their first successful order of footwear, fulfilling the long-awaited pre-orders.

In the five years since its inception, Combat Flip Flops has expanded its mission beyond Afghanistan with a diverse inventory, which now includes claymore bags, bangles, sarongs, and T-shirts. In Colombia, its flip-flop manufacturing provides much-needed jobs. In Laos, its peacemaker bangles are crafted with metal recycled from landmines, transforming weapons of war into tools of economic growth and social awareness. In Afghanistan, its sarongs are handmade by local women, the proceeds of which help fund secondary school education for Afghan girls. Currently, Combat Flip Flops dedicates 2 percent of the company’s net income to its charitable donations, which include education for Afghan women and girls and de-mining efforts in Laos. In total, Griff and Lee’s homegrown enterprise has provided more than 52 years of secondary school education and cleared roughly 30,677 square feet of unexploded ordnance in Laos.

“What really matters to us is putting those girls to school. We have this mentality of ‘just one more,’” Griff says. “Let’s get one more girl into school.”