Adapt, Innovate, Overcome

A New Jersey mother is organizing a drive to send cans of Silly String to 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.

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.
  
• 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.