But many robots are too big and heavy to be carried by soldiers on foot.

ECONOMIST: Anti-IED technologies

Surge soldiers moved out from their big bases in to the community.

CNN: Behind the Scenes: Surge helping, but Iraq still on knife's edge

In the U.S., the Defense Department has been the big spender for robots, seeking machines that can protect soldiers' lives.

FORBES: The Robots Are Coming!

In Iraq, some soldiers are also looking to catch another kind of big one.

NPR: U.S. Troops in Baghdad Make Fishing a Tradition

The big question haunting the Republican Party has been whether the evangelical foot-soldiers could be bothered to do the grunt work or even turn out to vote (Karl Rove blamed Mr Bush's election squeaker in 2000 on the fact that 4m evangelicals stayed at home when they heard of young George's drunk-driving conviction).

ECONOMIST: Evangelical voters

Unconfirmed sightings of big cats, including Siberian tigers and leopards, have also been reported in the DMZ by soldiers, but were not seen by the camera crew.

CNN: Beyond the barbed wire: the accidental paradise of the DMZ

It is also undertaking a big reform of the Bundeswehr, which consists largely of shrinking the army from 250, 000 soldiers in 2010, when the reform began, to about 185, 000 by 2017, to save money.

ECONOMIST: Germany��s army

Soldiers may be getting it from soil or from field hospitals in Iraq or even the big U.S. base in Landstuhl, Germany.

FORBES: War Wounds