Some lessons about what members of the Minnesota-based 34th Red Bull Infantry Division might expect during their deployment to Ebola-stricken Liberia next year, courtesy of the soldiers from the Army's Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne, who are there now.

A big takeaway: Ebola will be only one of their worries.

They aren't likely to be shot at, but everything from malaria to black mambas will be waiting when they arrive in the West African nation next year.

Philip Grey, who covers military affairs for the Clarksville, Tenn.-based Leaf-Chronicle, which reports on Fort Campbell, recently wrote about a briefing that deploying soldiers received at the base.

"A lot of you have been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, been shot at, blown up; you've been through all that and survived," Capt. Tyler Mark, the 101st Airborne's Force Health Protection officer, told the troops in Grey's report. "The environment you're going into is very different. The threat rates — the stuff that can kill you — is much worse."

Along with malaria, there is yellow fever, cholera, typhoid, hemorrhagic fever, HIV or AIDS, hepatitis A and B, and Lassa fever.

Soldiers were warned against any swimming or wading because of parasitic worms. Every animal is considered potentially infected with something — especially rabies.

Poisonous plants and venomous scorpions, spiders and snakes abound, including the black mamba snake, whose bite can kill in 20 minutes.

Heat injuries also are a threat. Temperatures regularly hit 100 degrees with 70 percent-plus humidity.

Soldiers are not expected to come in direct contact with Ebola patients, but returning troops will face a 21-day monitoring period at one of several quarantine facilities — Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.; Fort Bragg, N.C.; or Fort Hood and Fort Bliss, Texas. Additional quarantine sites have been established in Baumholder, Germany, and Vicenza, Italy.

Mark Brunswick • 612-673-4434