Here's a war story.
In Aug 1990 I was deployed to Saudi Arabia and immediately sent to the Iraq border to dig in fighting positions and wait for tanks to come roll over us (which didn't happen haha). I was taking a break from digging and sat down against some brush on the ground. I heard a hissing noise that sounded like a kitten and felt something hit the canteen that was on my back hip. I thought "there aren't any kittens out here" and jumped up. A horned sand viper was hidden in the brush and had taken a strike at me. I ended up killing it with my shovel. My canteen saved me from one of the most deadly snakes on the planet and I would have been screwed because we were out in the middle of nowhere. Saw a cobra every now and then as well. The Bedouins who live out in that desert are some hard core people.