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Rob at cockeyed.com reports, that Alex says:

“I’m a former Marine I in Afghanistan. Silly string has served me well in Combat especially in looking for I.A.Ds., simply put, booby traps. When you spray the silly sting in dark areas, especially when you doing house to house fighting. On many occasions the silly string has saved me and my men’s lives.“

First off, I should mention that Cockeyed.com is the number one result on Google on searches for “Silly String”.

Because of this, I was the lucky recipient of this letter from Alejandro Hernandez:

Hello sir,

I just have a quick question. I’m a former Marine I in Afghanistan. Silly string has served me well in Combat especially in looking for I.A.Ds., simply put, booby traps. When you spray the silly sting in dark areas, especially when you doing house to house fighting. On many occasions the silly string has saved me and my men’s lives.
Now my little brother has taken up the fight in Iraq and where he is, house to house fighting is intense. To get to the point I would like to purchase a large amount of silly string to send to him to help with the booby traps. Please send me some prices for a bulk order.

Thank you for you time, Alex

I wrote back:
Wait a minute. Explain this to me, you are using silly string to flush out booby traps or people? This sounds really interesting!

-Rob
And he replied:

Yes, I myself use it too. When you spray the string it just spreads everywhere and when it sets it lays right on the wire. Even in a dark room the string stands out revealing the trip wire.

I thought that was an ingenious use for silly string! I bought a can myself and tried it in my living room. Sure enough, the string reveals even a tiny black thread. Very cool! Hopefully you can see the results in the photos on this page.

I wrote back:

That is awesome! Can I put your letter on my website?
I’d also like to help. How much silly string do you need?
-Rob

and he replied:

Sure no prob. You can put it on your site. I was trying to get a case for my little brother he’s doing a lot of house to house fighting and where he is at the buildings are all made of mud brick with no power, so what ever you can do to help will be awesome! here’s his address:

SGT Dennis Hernandez
HHC 2/502 Inf
101st ABN DIV (AASLT)
APO AE 09398

This sounds like the perfect way for me to help. I’m sending a case. If you are similarly inclined, you are welcome to send some too.