U.S. Soldiers and Silly String

I thought this was quite a neat article and had to share:

Serious
Use for Silly String
By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press
Writer
Wed Dec 6, 3:14 PM ET

STRATFORD, N.J. - 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.

"If I turn on the TV and
see a soldier with a can of this on his vest, that would make this all worth
it," said Shriver, 57, an office manager.

The maker of the Silly String
brand, Just for Kicks Inc. of Watertown, N.Y., has contacted the Shrivers about
donating some. Other manufacturers make the stuff, too, and call their products
"party string" or "crazy string."

"Everyone in the entire corporation is
very pleased that we can be involved in something like this," said Rob Oram,
Just for Kicks product marketing manager. He called the troops' use of Silly
String innovative.

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.

In
other cases of battlefield improvisation in Iraq, U.S. soldiers have bolted
scrap metal to Humvees in what has come to be known as "Hillybilly Armor."
Medics use tampons to plug bullet holes in the wounded until they can be patched
up.

Also, soldiers put condoms and rubber bands around their rifle
muzzles to keep out sand. And troops have welded old bulletproof windshields to
the tops of Humvees to give gunners extra protection. They have dubbed it
"Pope's glass" — a reference to the barriers that protect the pontiff.

In an October call to his mother, Army Spc. Todd Shriver explained how
his unit in the insurgent hotbed of Ramadi learned from Marines to use Silly
String on patrol to detect boobytraps.

After sending some cans to her
28-year-old son, Shriver enlisted the help of two priests and posted notices in
her church and its newsletter. From there, the effort took off, with money and
Silly String flowing in. Parishioners have been dropping cans into donation
baskets.

"There's so much that they can't do, and they're frustrated,
but this is something they can do," said the Rev. Joseph Capella of St. Luke's
Church in Stratford.

The Shrivers said they would not mind seeing the
string as standard-issue equipment, but they don't blame the military for not
supplying it.

"I don't think that they can think of everything," said
Ronald Shriver, 59, a retired salesman. "They're taught to improvise, and this
is something that they've thought of."

Marcelle Shriver said that since
the string comes in an aerosol can, it is considered a hazardous material,
meaning the Postal Service will not ship it by air. But a private pilot who
heard about her campaign has agreed to fly the cans to Kuwait — most likely in
January — where they will then be taken to Iraq.

Shriver said she will
continue her campaign as long as her son is overseas and she has Silly String to
send.

"I know that he's going come through this. I hope they all do,"
she said.