80,000 cans of Silly String to the troops

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/s...998816,00.html

Soldier's Mom Finds Silly String Shipper

DEPTFORD TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) - After months of frustration, a mother of a soldier in Iraq has found someone to ship about 80,000 cans of Silly String to the troops, who use the foamy substance to detect trip wires on bombs.

Plus... it's fun...

[Sundae]

I'm impressed by her determination, if not by her administrative skills (it took her a YEAR?) I'd be interested to know if she bought all 80,000 cans and paid for postage herself. It's not relevant to the outcome of the story - which is a positive one - I'm just nosey like that.

[DanaC]

I suspect the larger part of the Silly String Campaign involved acquiring the silly string...or the money with which to purchase it.

[Sundae]

Ahhhhh I see - rereading it with the idea that the whole thing was a campaign makes more sense - I thought that the paper were using the term campaign to refer specifically to her search for shipping.

[lumberjim]

this is Sol....yes. hi. sorry. go ahead.

[ZenGum]

Let me check if I have this straight.
The troops need silly string, and I can see why. Clever solution to the trip-wire problem.
The army should supply it. Since when are soldiers' mothers responsible for supplying their equipment?
Now that a civilian has acquired it ... the army still can't transport it? Sure, bombs, bullets, grenades, no problem. SILLY STRING???!!! Are you nuts? That stuff is dangerous.

If the troops need it, the army should be supplying it. Full &%$#ing stop.

Hey, they still won't explain why they aren't allowed dragon skin, while all the private contractors get to have all it they want.

[tw]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

If the troops need it, the army should be supplying it. Full &%$#ing stop.

Mama is still fighting Vietnam war IEDs. Today's IEDs use remote control radios, buried wires, infrared transceivers, and optical sensors. Trip wires were how another set of insurgents defeated the US Army by not confronting that Army in combat.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by tw

Mama is still fighting Vietnam war IEDs. Today's IEDs use remote control radios, buried wires, infrared transceivers, and optical sensors. Trip wires were how another set of insurgents defeated the US Army by not confronting that Army in combat.

I thought that was punji stakes.
And trip wires to mines (usually stolen from the US minefields).
and supplying them with drugs
and sniping
and...
and...

I'm not sure what your point is.
If it is that the soldiers don't need silly string because the insurgents don't use trip wires, well I'm not in Iraq so I can't confirm, but it seems the soldiers want silly string so I suppose there must trip wire bombs about.

[BigV]

*this* facet of his never-ending point is that we're behind/slow/lacking/etc *again* as this response for silly string is more suited to the previous war (see behind/slow/lacking/etc) since in this one the IEDs are often triggered wirelessly.

You're new, you deserve a little break. But don't sweat it, you'll get it soon enough.

If they feel they need it and they are asking for it, that their parents and loved ones have to be the ones to get it for them is sick. End of story.
But, the fact that they have been used to illegally invade, occupy and subjugate a nation for no reason other than to steal oil is that in spades.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

Mama is still fighting Vietnam war IEDs. Today's IEDs use remote control radios, buried wires, infrared transceivers, and optical sensors. Trip wires were how another set of insurgents defeated the US Army by not confronting that Army in combat.

You're out of touch, tw. Indoors they use trip wires.

[tw]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

I'm not sure what your point is.

Point would be obvious if so many front page articles describing IEDs were read. In a long list of the technologies, trip wires are not even listed. What trips IEDs? Some of the more common include pressure, buried wires, remote controls using everything including toy remote controls, cell phone, and anything else that uses radio waves, optical sensors, magnetic detectors .... Some IEDs have an optical sensor to identify which target should be destroyed. Some also include delay functions. Mama is fighting Nam - not "Mission Accomplished". Nam used obsolete 'trip wire' triggers.

Tools used to find IEDs including U-2 aircraft, multi-spectrum satellites, and even long sticks hung in front of humvees hoping to trip IEDs prematurely. Before a soldier can get close enough to spray silly string, he would probably be dead. Easier is to throw a grenade. IEDs clearly are not using obsolete ''Vietnam era" technology. Wireless is only one in a long list of IED triggers. Trip wires do not even appear in that list. Yes, they are even using buried fiber optics to identify the targetted vehicle before exploding it.

The point is obvious. Silly string to detect bombs? Useless. Obviously useless. Mama apparently did not understand what they kept telling her.

[glatt]

we all know that IEDs are often triggered remotely by a wireless control, tw. Especially the roadside ones. But there are sometimes others that use a trip wire, mainly inside buildings, as Bruce already said.

See this discussion, for example.

While in Iraq (on dismounted infantry patrols) we would sometimes come across areas that we deemed suitable for someone to plant one of those horrible little mines in with a good tripwire.
Gentlemen, you will not use silly string when breaching a room or clearing a building, but when time is available to be careful, believe me it is very useful.
Case in point, my platoon was doing a patrol in an area of Bahgdad, clearing buildings for a convoy to move through a couple hours later. When we would enter a suspicious building (not that any of them weren't) we would sometimes spray the silly string in front of the doorway or around the building to check for tripwires. My commander was in the area one day and saw a yound specialist using the stuff. He threatened the young soldier with an article 15 for spraying flammable substances around, that was until the soldier pointed out the silly string magically floating in air just before a doorway. The silly string had landed on top of a trip wire and give us a heads up on it's location. You won't regularly notice fine fishing line run across the front of a doorway, unless something lets you know it's there.
NO you will not use silly string 24/7 in your AO to recognize ied threats, but when it saves the life of a young soldier (and maybe some higher command) it is a cheap investment.

Posted by: John | August 04, 2007 at 01:49 AM

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Tw always seeks our failure in Iraq. It's one of the several ways he keeps reminding us he's really the biggest dic-with-or-without-a-K -- is this circumcision? -- and thus to invite his daily dose of obloquy that he seems to constitutionally require. He's useful to the war effort in that he gives the antiwar effort such a bad name, so chronically, so determinedly.

He might make, for his treasonous utterances and worse personality, a pretty good IED himself, in the manner of Michael Moore in Team America: World Police: shredded ham blasted all over the place.

There is no merit to any argument I've heard that the War on Terror is anything like illegal, rk, and it's an absurd thing for one of your intelligence to believe. The Senate told the Prez he could fight, and that was enough: the Prez is covered by the law, and you can't change that.

Personally, I can't get enough war against fascisms and autocracies: they must go, and it makes little odds to me if they go quietly, as the DDR did, or with blood, fire and noise. It's only important that they go and enlightened, representative governments replace them, permanently. I'd rather have a desert than a dictatorship. Call me a fanatic, but always amend it with the understanding that I am a friend of mankind in ways many of you really aren't.