Snake Eater

This is a great feel-good story of civilians mucking in to do what the Government cannot. In this case, it is to create and supply a policing tool to the army in Khalidiya, a town north of Baghdad.

This is a story of can-do in a no-can-do world, a story of how a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in Anbar province. They did this in 30 days, from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. Compared to standard operating procedure for Iraq, this is a nanosecond.

The blogger was Bill Roggio, who played the courier. For the rest, see this article from the WSJ. Bill Roggio sees the "Snake Eater" in action.