Afghanistan's Night-Time Creepy-Crawlers

Huge spiders called camel spiders creep into sleeping bags and hide in the empty boots of the soldiers in Afghanistan. Scorpions and poisonous snakes keep the soldiers watchful of where they step. When a soldier first arrives in Afghanistan, he or she is warned to keep food out of their sleeping tents because it attracts rodents, and the rodents attract snakes! The soldiers are also told to kill any snake that bites them so that the doctor can figure out which anti-venom to use. These are every-day precautions in the life of a soldier in Afghanistan!

Canada's Reindeer

The caribou is the emblem (a symbol, or design on a badge or coat-of-arms) for the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. This large member of the reindeer family is a symbol of Canada's fallen soldiers from Newfoundland in the First World War. There are six Caribou monuments: one in Bowring Park, Newfoundland, and five in Europe at each memorial site representing the Newfoundland soldiers. These caribou are visible year-round.

Top Dog

Dogs were trained to search for hidden landmines (bombs planted beneath or on the ground) during the Korean War. If the soldiers with these highly skilled dogs met up with enemy soldiers, they had orders to save the dog and the engineer who works with the dog as a top priority! These dogs had the ability to save many lives and so, were very valuable to the Korean War effort. Such dogs have also been used in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Afghanistan. Dogs have a powerful sense of smell and can sniff out the explosives.