But Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said Army soldiers and Marines are not forbidden to come up with new ways to do their jobs, especially in Iraq’s ever-evolving battlefield. And he said commanders are given money to buy nonstandard supplies as needed.
The ‘non-standard supplies’ in question may be Silly String(TM), MSNBC is speculating.
I suppose that it might be true, though perhaps on a somewhat smaller scale than MSNBC suggests. There is, after all, a difference between saying that American troops use a tactic, and that some American troops have improvised a tactic. All the same, it seems highly unlikely to me.
At any rate, though, this story has all of the features that make a good, slow-news-day story about the war in Iraq: the anguish of the family at home, the plight of the troops in the field, the juxtaposition of everyday objects and deadly fear, the none-too-subtle hint that the troops have been badly provisioned and led, and the merest hint of corporate advertising.