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Why do you think US Marines carried a children's party toy with them on patrol in Iraq and Afghanistan when they wanted to clear out a house? If it's stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid. This simple concept is one that anyone who's ever been in a combat zone can truly appreciate. During the global war on terror, one of the most deadly threats to coalition members were IEDs. These improvised explosive devices are what they sound like, explosives that can take on any number of forms waiting for an unlucky soldier to stray blindly into the blast radius. Some IEDs are sophisticated making use of cell phones or other advanced technology to set off the device, but others are much more primitive. One of the most common and simplest involves
little more than a string stretched across the doorway or other choke point and attached to a grenade or other explosive. When the string is tripped by an unwary soldier, the device activates and explodes. Of course, the string needs to be as inconspicuous as possible, usually made from fishing line or other very thin and translucent material that's very hard to see and usually positioned to make visibility as difficult as possible, often at shin level. Soldiers entering a room have to scour the area, specifically the entryway from top to bottom in order to detect any possible trap.
This is mind-numbingly tedious, especially when there could be dozens of rooms to clear, and even the most careful soldiers can miss a well-placed trap after hours of searching one room at a time. If nothing else, it's time-consuming and inefficient. Rather than visually scan from top to bottom, there is an easier way. Silly String has been a novelty party toy for over half a century, but it is surprisingly difficult to explain. We all know what it is, that it looks like a can of spray paint, but it launches long strings of colorful foam that add a little bit of life to a party or a centerpiece of a school prank.
Silly String is made from a combination of a polymer resin to form the base of the substance, a surfactant or surface active agent, which makes the thin stream expand, and aerosol propellant to launch it out of the can, and also creates an outer skin as it leaves the can, giving it some structure and keeping it from falling apart. There are other ingredients like pigments, and the exact formula is a carefully guarded secret by the current manufacturer, the same company that makes those tree-shaped air fresheners that hang from a car's rearview mirror. The name Silly String is also trademarked, and knockoff brands may have a different name, but act in virtually the same way. So, what does this have to do with IEDs in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Well, the Silly String is light. A strand weighs only a few grams at most, and maintains its structure even after hitting something. So, in order to avoid stepping on a hidden tripwire, soldiers would stand outside the suspected room, shake a can of Silly String, and then spray it inside. If the string hits the ground, there are no tripwires. If it stays floating in the air, that could only mean there was a hard-to-see wire keeping it up. The string is light enough that should it hit a wire, it wouldn't be enough to actually trigger the device, which would take several pounds of force. The string is also slightly adhesive, so it will stick to the tripwire, letting the soldiers know exactly where it is.
The string has a range of about 10 ft, enough to clear most rooms, or at the very least provide enough space to land there, and the soldiers would work their way forward from there. What once took several minutes of careful scanning and searching could now be accomplished in a few seconds, and possibly more thoroughly. It can't detect pressure plates or electronic detonators, however. The idea for using Silly String to detect tripwires was apparently discovered by Sergeant First Class David B. Chandler, who was the chief instructor at the U.S. Army Sapper Leader Course as far back as 1993. In an age of billion-dollar weapon
systems, advanced technology that wouldn't be out of place in a sci-fi movie, and the most cutting-edge fighting equipment the world has ever seen, one of the most effective ways to detect a booby trap was a can of a novelty toy worth a few cents and available at any party store. Unfortunately, Iraq and Afghanistan have a serious lack of party stores, and the top brass had other priorities beyond silly string. So, someone else had to step up. In October 2006, Marcella Shriever had a phone call with her son, Army Specialist Todd Shriever, stationed in Ramadi, Iraq, where he mentioned that he learned about the silly string trick from Marines operating nearby. After the conversation, Marcella put the
word out, and with the help of two priests at her local church, began taking donations of silly string to be sent abroad. Money and cans of the party novelty started pouring in, and in short order, over a thousand cans of the stuff was sitting in Shriever's garage. There was a bit of a problem, though. Ironically, although it was going to be used to detect explosive devices, cans of silly string are actually themselves considered hazardous material due to the aerosol propellant, which can explode under the wrong conditions. Care packages sent from home by civilians are nothing new and are sent overseas by the US Postal Service.
Unfortunately, due to Postal Service regulations, silly string is a prohibited item, and Marcella Shriever had no way to get the ever-growing pile of the stuff overseas to the troops that needed it. After months of frustration, she was then approached by Capacity LLC, a New Jersey-based shipping company that specialized in handling hazardous materials. They would inspect the packages of silly string, which, thanks to the donations, have turned into shipping pallets sitting in her garage, and approve them for transport. They would then turn them over to the post office, who could now ship them overseas to where they were needed. In all, over 80,000 cans of silly string were sent overseas by 2007 alone, and others from around the
country would send their own cans to those serving in combat zones. While there's no doubt that it was used to detect tripwires and save many lives, soldiers will be soldiers, and some, especially those in more secure areas, would use it for the original purpose. According to Sergeant Neil Gusman, quote, "On big, well-protected airbase, we use silly string as well. Silly string. People sprayed it on each other in the barracks." End quote. Look, bored soldiers are going to be bored soldiers. If nothing else, a silly string fight in the barracks was a morale boost. So, an absolute win all the way around.
Using silly string on the battlefield is part of a larger phenomenon that's taken place around the world since the dawn of warfare. Soldiers are given specific equipment and training, but this isn't always enough to get the job done, and making do with what's at hand has become an art form that has been perfected through the generations. The list of non-standard uses for equipment by soldiers in the field is nearly endless. Soldiers riding in vehicles would take it upon themselves to add extra armor made from anything from scraps of metal, plexiglass, bed frames, logs, spare tank tracks, or whatever else they can scrounge.
Helmets and uniforms have been used to create decoys. Condoms have been used to cover the muzzles of rifles to keep them free from debris. Feminine hygiene products have been used to plug bullet wounds. And a roll of tape is so useful, we have an entire video about everything that can be done with it, from medical supplies to helping snipers stay hidden. For the most part, this is encouraged. There's no way leadership can predict everything on an ever-changing battlefield, and if nothing else, military bureaucracy makes officially supplying troops new equipment a swamp of red tape to wade through. Soldiers often buy their own gear like chest
rigs, knee pads, or whatever else they might need. Soldiers could also improvise their weapons, cutting down their barrels or removing parts they don't need, adding scopes to heavy machine guns, or cobbling together Franken-guns from other weapons. When life and death are on the line, soldiers will do anything to tip the balance in their favor. During the global war on terror, IEDs were responsible for more coalition casualties than any other source. And while we don't have exact numbers, silly string helped keep that number a little lower. Marcella Shriver summed it up when she said, "If this saves one life, I'm happy."
