Thinking outside the box
MacGyver has nothing on the inventiveness of American troops dealing with the problem of invisible trip wires on hidden bombs. As inventive is one Mom in New Jersey who is sending “Silly String” to troops in Iraq.
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.”
December 7th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
This was on cockeyed.com a bit ago, but got promptly pulled by request. Someone suggested that we did not want to give our secrets to the insurgents.
Current Cockeyed:
http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/silly/silly.html
Nov 2005 cache at archive.org:
http://web.archive.org/web/20051107011327/http://cockeyed.com/citizen/silly/silly.html
I suppose now Rob can put it back up with pictures. At least we can’t blame this one on You-Tube or Google.
December 7th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
from the article:
Yup, that’s a pretty old trick. While not sterile, they are clean, cheap and designed to absorb blood.
I keep a few feminine pads in my backpacking first aid kit for this reason.
December 7th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
The silly string thing has been around for a while. I think I first heard of it during the second Fallujah campaign.
December 7th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Yeah I remember this story from cockeyed a year ago. Yep still got a link in favorites to it.