The Army Reserve troops in Iraq have come up with specialized vehicles for detecting and removing roadside explosives.

Anyone who’s ever dealt with the Pentagon procurement bureaucracy knows that it can be a nightmare, but when we’re actually in a fighting war and people are dying, it’s surprising how fast red tape can be cut:

The operation caught the attention of top brass, said Lt. Col. Kent Savre, commander of the Fort Lewis Wash.-based 864th Engineer Battalion, the team?s higher headquarters.

Savre, 43, of Edina, Minn., recommended that the Army supply one system to each division in Iraq. Three weeks after filing the request, a half-dozen more sets were shipped out, Savre said.

?I?ve never seen anything like this in my 19 years in the Army,? Savre said. ?The senior leaders saw the threat and immediately bought more [systems].?