Silly String Has Serious Use in Iraq (for real)

http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/12/07/silly-string-has-serious-use-in-iraq/?url=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.news.aol.com%2Fnews%2F_a%2Fsilly-string-has-serious-use-in-iraq%2F20061206140609990012%3Fcid%3D2194&frame=true


In an age of multimillion-dollar high-tech weapons systems, sometimes it's the simplest ideas that can save lives. Which is why a New Jersey mother is organizing a drive to send cans of Silly String to Iraq.

American troops use the stuff to detect trip wires around bombs, as Marcelle Shriver learned from her son, a soldier in Iraq.

Before entering a building, troops squirt the plastic goo, which can shoot strands about 10 to 12 feet, across the room. If it falls to the ground, no trip wires. If it hangs in the air, they know they have a problem. The wires are otherwise nearly invisible.

Now, 1,000 cans of the neon-colored plastic goop are packed into Shriver's one-car garage in this town outside Philadelphia, ready to be shipped to the Middle East thanks to two churches and a pilot who heard about the drive.

-snip-

The military is reluctant to talk about the use of Silly String, saying that discussing specific tactics will tip off insurgents.

But Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said Army soldiers and Marines are not forbidden to come up with new ways to do their jobs, especially in Iraq's ever-evolving battlefield. And he said commanders are given money to buy nonstandard supplies as needed.
-snip-
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if we brought them all home it wouldn't be necessary for them to shoot guns or silly string

and it wouldn't be necessary for the Iraqis to boobytrap rooms

Whoever it is, he needs to be promoted! The things you can do these days...

That said, the quote, "The military is reluctant to talk about the use of Silly String, saying that discussing specific tactics will tip off insurgents," is disconcerting. I mean really -- how could the insurgency seriously counter Silly String?

possibLy an open-fLame/fLashpoint.

seriousLy.

Necessity is the mother, and all.
The Professor

the silly string helps save lives NOW.
anybody who thinks that the troops will be coming back anytime within the next 6-9 months AT LEAST is having some reality problems.

So forget it.

I am going to try and get this added to the list.

We can do something to really support our troops, give them the tools to stay alive.

could be moved away from the development of some new submarine premium contract ot picking up a few cans for the infantry.

...to see "Silly String" as a line-item in a budget. Hell, ANY budget. That would be awesome.

...that Halliburton will likely soon be selling $500 cans of "Serious String" to the Army.