4 ms·

WTF? That meal cost seems insane. Did you fly in grassfed beef fillet every day and have it prepared by ninjas or something? Didn't you eat the local food?

jacques_chester 13y ago
It'd be the all-up cost. Delivering sorta-fresh food to the far side of the planet in regions where people try to blow up your food trucks is expensive. You think food is bad? Look up the all-up cost for fuel.
- rdl 13y ago
  Yeah, it was almost all transport and security and staff, not food. Although, they did have some good food (it ranged from public high school at worst to high-end corporate cafeteria at best; varied by base and time). Surf and turf (although food safety required them to overcook steaks) one night a week. Ice cream. Generally a line with lots of choices for entree. Mostly it was frozen stuff from the equivalent of Sysco, but mid-range, not the absolute cheapest it could be. An order of magnitude better than MREs or the meals at US bases. Absolutely none of it was from Iraq or Afghanistan; there was some bought from approved vendors in Kuwait/UAE and trucked/flown in. Fresh fruit and veg for Afghanistan flew from Bahrain 3-5 days/week. The big improvement was putting RO water purification in country, rather than trucking bottled water (used for all potable use) from far away. The standard unit of water was a 12-pack of 1.5L bottles, later a 24 pack of 20oz bottles, or one level up from that, a pallet (you could just call a guy and have him drop a pallet of water on base anywhere you wanted).
  - shadowcats 13y ago
    That's fascinating. Btw, I think everyone should read the essay about you, gives new meaning to in the trenches tech experience: http://www.rezendi.com/travels/bbbb.html http://www.rezendi.com/travels/bbbb.html
- rdl 13y ago
  All-up cost for 100LL (to power the early small Army drones) was insane, since it was in small quantities. Like $20-30/gal all-in, which is why they tried to switch to JP8/Jet-A drones as fast as possible. IIRC, the Kingdom of Kuwait actually donated a lot of the Jet-A/JP8, mogas, and diesel fuel used by the US in Iraq. But KBR charged about $2.50/gal to truck it from Kuwait to Iraq. It was about $1.50 to bring it from Turkey. Gas was subsidized by the Iraqi government and sold for $0.10/gal on the civilian market at official gas stations, but they had 4-8h long lines (which were dangerous targets), so a lot of people paid about $1/gal to guys with plastic bottles by the side of the road.

jacques_chester 13y ago

It'd be the all-up cost. Delivering sorta-fresh food to the far side of the planet in regions where people try to blow up your food trucks is expensive. You think food is bad? Look up the all-up cost for fuel.

rdl 13y ago
Yeah, it was almost all transport and security and staff, not food. Although, they did have some good food (it ranged from public high school at worst to high-end corporate cafeteria at best; varied by base and time). Surf and turf (although food safety required them to overcook steaks) one night a week. Ice cream. Generally a line with lots of choices for entree. Mostly it was frozen stuff from the equivalent of Sysco, but mid-range, not the absolute cheapest it could be. An order of magnitude better than MREs or the meals at US bases. Absolutely none of it was from Iraq or Afghanistan; there was some bought from approved vendors in Kuwait/UAE and trucked/flown in. Fresh fruit and veg for Afghanistan flew from Bahrain 3-5 days/week. The big improvement was putting RO water purification in country, rather than trucking bottled water (used for all potable use) from far away. The standard unit of water was a 12-pack of 1.5L bottles, later a 24 pack of 20oz bottles, or one level up from that, a pallet (you could just call a guy and have him drop a pallet of water on base anywhere you wanted).
- shadowcats 13y ago
  That's fascinating. Btw, I think everyone should read the essay about you, gives new meaning to in the trenches tech experience: http://www.rezendi.com/travels/bbbb.html http://www.rezendi.com/travels/bbbb.html
rdl 13y ago
All-up cost for 100LL (to power the early small Army drones) was insane, since it was in small quantities. Like $20-30/gal all-in, which is why they tried to switch to JP8/Jet-A drones as fast as possible. IIRC, the Kingdom of Kuwait actually donated a lot of the Jet-A/JP8, mogas, and diesel fuel used by the US in Iraq. But KBR charged about $2.50/gal to truck it from Kuwait to Iraq. It was about $1.50 to bring it from Turkey. Gas was subsidized by the Iraqi government and sold for $0.10/gal on the civilian market at official gas stations, but they had 4-8h long lines (which were dangerous targets), so a lot of people paid about $1/gal to guys with plastic bottles by the side of the road.