Ze Camel Spider [Eeeeks]

December 15

Back around July 2003 after the war was declared over me a some of my Marines were sitting in our house playing cards. Our location at the time was in Al-Kut on an air base that we had taken over during the war, me and my guys were living right by the river, that exact spot seemed to be the “ Mecca” of Camel Spiders. It was pretty late that night all of us sitting around the table, my back was to the wall by the front door. All of a sudden one of my guys said there is a big Spider on the wall behind you. I looked over my shoulder and sure enough I think that was the biggest one we all have seen there, I would say it matched your three inch size, give or take a couple centimeters.Well I slowly stood up and reached for the first thing I could get my hands on to kill it, (by the way these things are hard to kill) As I stood up he just sat there watching me then I hit it square and hard with a stick that I always kept in arms reach for that purpose. The Spider hit the floor and just disappeared in thin air.My boys started laughing and said “Yeah he is going to go get his homeboys and come back here to kick your butt.” I walked back to my room to get my four cell Mag Light then I walked out on my front porch when I shut the door I heard a thud….I flicked on my light and there he was. This spider had jumped off the roof onto a MRE box that was on the porch, he just sat there and looked at me. Once again I swung at him, but he was to fast and got away, after a few minutes of scanning the area I went back inside to finish the card game.The war started about ten minutes after the first encounter….and sure enough my boys was right. He got his home boys and can back for a fight. To make a long story short I killed eight of those things that night there had to have been 12-15 of them that came back to get me. This is just one of many encounters I’ve had have fun and be safe.

December 24

I am a desert storm vet and had an unfortunate run in with one of these things in 1991. Anyway, this is my short story. . . We were in Saudi Arabia about ½ an hour from the Iraq border. It was just after the ground war and we were on a forward mission to setup tents for the rest of our company who were still in Iraq. I was sitting on my cot and had moved a box containing food when one of these things scampered out between my legs, just inches from my hand. Having never seen something like this before I overreacted a little bit. I screamed like a little girl, flung back my body, and tumbled head over heals to ground. As the rest of the tent laughed at me, one of my buddies said “there it goes” and it disappeared under the side of the tent. Those little buggers blend in real well with the desert sand. We never saw another one in the area and I was really glad. To my recollection, it was only 8 to 10 inches long, moved quickly, and never made any screaming sounds. I was the one making the screaming sound. It sure did scary the heck out of me but it was just as scared of me as I was of it.