Brick Billets at Salerno I

They "jingled" everything. Above left is a water trailer used for mixing concrete in Salerno for the brick billets. Above right is mid-level of sophistocation in concrete mixing (at the high end we had a concrete batch plant and at the low end we had a pile of components on the ground that water was poured on (imagine making homemade pasta)). Afghans have pretty good bricks, but they normally use mud not mortar. They also don't butter the sides of the bricks so that at times you could see right through the 18" walls before they put the stucco on. Keeping things at an American level of quality control was very difficult. The brick does offer better protection over tents, its easier to cool and heat and it uses all native materials.ADMINISTRATOR'S NOTE: "Salerno" is the name given to a Forward Operating Base (FOB) that the Inner Prop commanded. "Jingled" means carried by "jingle truck" [see also above]

AUTHOR'S UPDATE: Salerno was set up by the US 82nd Division and it was named, as all other bases they set up, after a place they jumped into. In WWII the 82nd jumped into Salerno Italy.