Military boots to be recycled by artists, like me

I am in the proud position to have some soldier's worn and weathered boots as ingredients for an artistic dialogue about war, service, freedom and peace. This weekend I received a well wrapped box from the ipads for soldiers organization.

Inside the box I found combat boots from the deployment to Afghanistan. They seem to be from both army and air force. I am hoping to have these transformed into art as part of an installation called, "footsteps to freedom" that will be on display during Miami Basel in December. It's a tremendous priviledge to be given something so precious- and the boots feel precious- because you can see that they once held up a human for a workday I can barely imagine. The risks and sacrifices of the missing owner really fill the shoe with an aura. One of them has pale granular sand in it, and another is so worn down there is barely any tread left, and the inside bears a strong impression of the toes.