Jim Marconi figured one thing out during his two years in the U.S. Army: He doesn’t like the desert.

When Marconi was 26, he was drafted into the Army, where he served as an engineer on a base in Texas. The base was in the desert and he said his bunk was often inhabited by critters. One night, he found a scorpion in his duffle bag, which he had been using as a pillow. Marconi got out his trench shovel to kill the scorpion.

“I must have beat on that thing for five minutes,” he said. “But I got him taken care of.”