As a kid I used to play with my uncle's canteens (and other GI Joe equipment) from his days as a US soldier. They were heavy and durable, and I thought they were the neatest things in the world. But, thanks to the sports world, the canteen is becoming obsolete($):

An avid cyclist living in the scorching heat of central Texas, Chuck Hunter staggered into a bike shop in 1997 and says he succumbed to a "cute" saleswoman's pitch. He left wearing a water-filled backpack with a tube extending to his mouth so that he could drink without reaching for a water bottle.

Two years after that first sip, Mr. Hunter quit his job at Lockheed Martin Corp. to join the company that made the backpack-canteen, CamelBak Products LLC. At the time, the small firm had a devoted clientele of mountain bikers and counterculture types; for example, CamelBaks were ubiquitous at Burning Man, a radical art festival held each summer in the Nevada desert.

Mr. Hunter, a former fighter pilot, sensed an emerging market among a different breed of desert dweller: the U.S. soldier. Now CamelBak's senior vice president for government, military and industrial business, he has turned the Petaluma, Calif., company into a global leader in so-called hydration systems, selling several million backpacks to troops in the U.S. and some 50 foreign armies. The Pentagon, which recently placed a $17 million order so that it can issue CamelBaks to all soldiers heading to Iraq and Afghanistan, is the company's biggest customer.