One time during a field problem I was on an OP with a couple of other guys. I was in charge (arguably a mistake)
Anyway one of the new privates found a prairie rattler and started teasing it with a stick. I saw what he was doing and told him to leave it alone. Of course he didn't and promptly got bit. I have read that fooling around with a rattler is one of the leading causes of snakebite and I tend to believe it.
Needless to say, he flipped out and instantly wanted to kill the snake and I restrained him.
"Leave the damned snake alone," I said. "He gets a pass for teaching you not to do stupid things and besides we gotta get you evacuated."
Then I remembered that we were supposed to kill the snake and bring it in with the bite victim so I blew its head off with a blank cartridge.
I told a Sp/4 to take care of the bite and reached for the radio and called battalion and reported it and asked if a chopper was required for evacuation and they said they'd call it in.
The Sp/4 was an old hand that was probably more qualified than I was and was still a Sp/4 because promotions in his MOS were slow. He actually should have been running this detail but I wore the stripes.
We did the proscribed first aid, a chopper arrived and he got flown to the base hospital where it was later to be found to be a dry bite. This supposedly happens about a third of the time with rattlers.
Later I chewed the guy out for making me kill a snake that had actually done no wrong but had performed a valuable service which was teaching him not to do stupid things. I later heard the old man had overheard me telling him off and smirked.
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