80,000 Cans of Silly String Waiting for Troops in Iraq

FOXNews.com – Mother of U.S. Soldier Needs Way to Get 80,000 Cans of Silly String to Iraq – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

Shriver got the idea from her son, a soldier in Ramadi. Before entering a building, troops squirt the gooey substance, which can travel about 10 to 12 feet, across an area. If it falls to the ground — that’s an indication there are no trip wires. If it hangs in the air, troops know they may have a problem.

I never thought of silly string as a military tool, but this makes sense. It’s also a great example of just how innovative soldiers can be when they need to. As Gunny Highway said in Heartbreak Ridge, “Improvise, Adapt, Overcome!”

There’s just one problem right now – Marcelle Shriver has collected 80,000 cans of silly string, but can’t seem to find a way to get it over to Iraq.

I emailed John the Armorer at The Castle Argghhh! about this to run it by him before posting, especially considering the whole missiles for shoes debacle . John kindly and quickly wrote me back. According to John (sounds biblical somehow ) :

This is one of those things where she has to find a military sponsor. Logistics into Iraq is a *huge* enterprise, that has a momentum of it’s own.

There’s certainly room to go over, but you never know on which planes when, etc. Then, when it gets there, someone has to know it’s coming and where to send it – in other words, it needs to be in the pipeline to somewhere, or it will just get shunted off and forgotten – like the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones.

What she needs to do is find a sponsor *in* Iraq, preferably someone who can get to a brigade commander and sell *him* on the idea – and they can generate the requirement, which will open up the system.

I know it seems like it should be a no-brainer simple thing to do – but it really isn’t, as a on-off, outside the procurement-shipping-receiving system, unless there is someone inside the system who knows where to route it.

Post away! Who knows, enough noise about it, someone may step up to *be* that sponsor.

Now, to be fair (which I try to do most of the time), the article also quotes Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesman over in Iraq who says that if the commanders on the ground are screaming for something, they’ll get it for the guys. Lt. Col. Garver also said that it was used frequently in 2004, but not so much these days.

My opinion (albeit with no military experience to back it up) is that it can’t hurt, especially with operations like Arrowhead Ripper which was written about so expertly by Michael Yon. The worst case scenario as I see it is that the whole shipment is either used to train Iraqi forces or by the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation departments. No matter how you slice it, it’ll do more good over there than sitting over here .