This photo displays a typical "Company Street" at Camp Mackall. When the 511th PIR first arrived at Mackall, they were instructed to keep their streets clean and to make sure that the huge coal bins shown here (that look like dumpsters) remained in line with their buildings and the other bins.
Some trouble-makers decided to go out each night and randomly move some of the huge dumpsters (remember, they were full of coal) so each morning the paratroopers had to go out and make sure their coal bins were perfectly in line. If they were too far out of place, the platoons or entire companies were gigged.
The boys of the 511th PIR enjoyed Camp Mackall's superior facilities when not out on several-day bivouacs or long marches. Out of 12,000 volunteers, only 2,176 remained, having passed (i.e. survived) Colonel Orin Haugen's strict acceptance guidelines. At Mackall the soldiers practiced field problems and got to know the other units in their mother organization, the 11th Airborne Division under Major-General Joseph May Swing.
