Snakes, Spiders, Scorpions and Guns

“So your three biggest fears are Alligators, Crocodiles and brain aneurisms?  Why brain aneurisms?”
“Because a brain aneurism can strike at any time Lana, which is what makes it so TERRIFYING!”
                                                                                                                                -Archer

So besides the crippling heat (which may or may not cause a brain aneurism… I swear it’s so hot sometimes I’m positive I’m about to have one) and being in an active war zone, there are creatures here that want nothing more than to feed on my dead body. Unfortunately for me, they are all quite venomous and very adept at exacting monumental amounts of pain and/or agony before dining on my flesh like the well stocked buffet it is. Also regrettable is the fact that I am immensely leery of one, whereas the others only moderately spook the shit out of me. The three biggest threats are Pit Vipers, Scorpions and Camel Spiders. 

Not much of an explanation is needed when it comes to Pit Vipers. They are exactly what they sound like: wicked, poisonous and mind-blowingly aggressive snakes that can move like lightning through sand and want everything around them dead. I assume these have been summoned from beneath the crust of the earth by evil forces to make my life a living hell. I have a healthy professional concern (because pilots are never scared) for snakes back in the states, and now I’m dealing with their meaner, more aggressive cousins. Normally I just end snakes lives violently with a shovel or crow bar or [insert household tool that doubles as a barbaric weapon here], but no such luck over here. 

Scorpions out here are exactly like what you would think they would be: poisonous, sneaky and big. I’m not really scared of these as much anymore since I grew up around them and have been stung by them a bunch, every time while in bed. Trust me, once you’ve been stung by a scorpion in your bed, the rest of the arachnid family doesn’t hold as much of a threat anymore. Even in subsequent stingings, I would wake up in pain and think to myself, “Not again…” as I proceeded to toss my bed for the offending demon bug. The ones here are worse –IE can kill a person if an antivenin isn’t administered quickly – but I always check my sheets before bedding down and haven’t seen one yet. We’ll see if that luck holds out.

Camel spiders on the other hand are enormous spiders that roam about like 8 legged predators. I don’t mean enormous like “big enough to jump on a chair and howl,” I’m talking big enough that people have fired weapons at these things because they are so intimidating. They’re like tarantulas on steroids. And they love the shade.  This wouldn’t really be a problem if there was more shade here – it is the desert – and everyone didn’t come with a healthy (sometimes too healthy depending on the persons eating habits) shadow in the land of the eternal sun. This doesn’t sound like an issue until the spider spots the shade that the person is creating, at which point the spider makes a bee line to the person’s shadow which is probably as unnerving as it sounds. I talked to someone whenever I showed up about these and he had this to say: “Camel spiders? Yeah those things are fast. They’ll come flying for the shade and no one wants a big ass spider running after them.” Running. He used the word running! I looked it up online, and these assholes can move about half as fast as a human in a dead sprint. Really? So on top of snakes trying to kill me and scorpions trying to sneak under my covers, I have to deal with Usain Bolt’s satanic offspring chasing after me? AWESOME. Again, I’m not too terribly afraid of spiders; I’ve held tarantulas and Brown Recluses are prevalent in Oklahoma (aren’t they Rob? I bet you won’t sleep on the floor in OK again will you?), but a beefy arachnid on Deca-durabolin sprinting after me and my associated shadow will have me running for the nearest border screaming all the way.

This all became an issue the other night when I was shaken from a dead sleep by something… it might’ve been the F-16s that take off right next to me, or it could be my bed itself which vibrates all night long. Seriously. At first I thought I was imagining things/going completely insane until I asked my roommate and he said, “Yeah my last roommate said that bed shook all night long. I guess he wasn’t crazy.” Well, the verdict is in. He’s not. I swear it feels like I’m sleeping on a magic fingers bed that someone jammed WAY too many quarters in and left. Or the generator for our unit is directly under my bed and it’s about to throw a rod. Wouldn’t that be the way to go? The mishap report for that would be quite depressing. “Captain Dowd was killed in his sleep due to a malfunctioning generator located 4 feet underneath his bed which detonated in an impressive fashion and during its death throes, launched a better part of its shredded internals vertically and parked itself in Captain Dowd’s chest cavity.” Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. But I digress... 

I woke up, crawled out of the Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People (it was an actual movie, look it up! There’s your 2^nd pop culture reference Dan), and realized nature was calling. There is nothing more depressing than waking up and realizing two walks through the gravel pit to the nearest latrine is what stands between you and returning to sleep. God help the man who forgets his reflective belt and neglects to tuck his shirt in on the way! So I don my flip flops and reflective belt and as I’m walking out of my room, I’m fairly certain that I saw a slithering something disappear under the steps directly across from my room. Let’s say for the sake of this post it was somewhere between 8 and 24 feet long with the face of Satan himself. Honestly I’m not sure if I really saw a snake, but at night the walk is treacherous enough without an actual snake, and if there is one, we’re now talking real danger. If you’ve seen my deployment photos on Facebook, you’ll realize there are PLENTY of places for a snake to lay in wait for my tantalizing flip-flopped foot to go sauntering past. So I freeze in my tracks as all of this comes crashing into my nonplussed mind while I try and weigh the dangers of walking through this Death Valley against the fact that I might not sleep anymore because of the need to go to the bathroom.  So I’m standing on my porch tallying Operational Risk Management points (for you non-pilot types, ORM points are what we use to mitigate possible risks on a mission), and I’m realizing that my total has rapidly gone from “completely bored by the task at hand” to  “I’d be bat-shit crazy to go another step.” I did the only thing I could think: attempt the precarious pit crossing. Snakes be damned, I had to pee and I am fairly certain you can give yourself cancer if you hold it too long. Ok maybe not, but snake or no, this issue wasn’t going to go away pleasantly without a bathroom visit. I crept off of my porch, and then sprinted away, flip-flops a-flapping, and made it safely to the latrine without a problem.

This sparked an interesting discussion with my roommate J-Flo. We carry guns EVERYWHERE. You literally can’t get into the chow hall without one. I even carry one at church, which is the greatest combination of the 1^st and 2^nd Amendment EVER. Jesus and guns! It’s like being in the South again! But even with all this firepower wandering around, would a person get into trouble for killing a snake with one’s sidearm? J-Flo’s response was terrifyingly close to sounding like it was pulled out of an Air Force regulation:

J-Flo:  You probably wouldn’t get in trouble if you could prove you were in immediate peril.
Me: Uhh, it’s a snake. It WANTS to bite me. Of course I’m in peril!
J-Flo: Well, if you can prove it, you probably won’t get into trouble.
Me: I can’t believe we’re having this conversation… It shouldn’t even be an issue. They should thank me and give me a medal and a bottle of scotch for being such a badass.
J-Flo: You’d still probably get written up.
Me: I’d rather get bitten by the damn snake.

So this ended the discussion. I decided if I see a snake, I’m going to stun it by throwing my gun at it, and then choke it to death with my reflective belt. That’s what Bear Grylls would do. Then he would turn the thing inside out, tied a knot in it, and use it as a bag to pee into so he didn’t have to go outside at night and risk getting bitten in the FIRST PLACE!

I hope y’all are doing well and enjoying your Labor Day. I miss you all.

-Wellen