America's Wired Warrior
Major Elden Lacer didn't expect to be sitting in a classroom in Oklahoma this winter. An 18-year U.S. Army veteran, he has served two tours of duty in Iraq. But Lacer isn't doing standard training. Instead, he's taking an unusual 11-week training course on electronics, learning such things as how to turn a garage door opener A garage door opener is a motorized device that opens and closes garage doors. Most are controlled by switches on the garage wall, as well as by remote controls carried in the garage owner's cars. into a bomb detonator detonator (dĕ`tənā'tər), type of explosive that reacts with great rapidity and is used to set off other, more inert explosives. Fulminate of mercury mixed with potassium chlorate is a commonly used detonator. . He's also finding out how insurgents Insurgents, in U.S. history, the Republican Senators and Representatives who in 1909–10 rose against the Republican standpatters controlling Congress, to oppose the Payne-Aldrich tariff and the dictatorial power of House speaker Joseph G. Cannon. can turn key fobs into explosives and how tech systems called jammers can be used to disable To turn off; deactivate. See disabled. electronic weapons. "Whoever can [use this technology] best is going to have a decided advantage," says Lacer, a former Apache helicopter pilot.
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