Lt. Jeff Cobb had heard about the “castle” at Forward Operating Base Kanashin when he got his orders to deploy to Afghanistan with the Marines. But the 27-year-old wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he got there.
“The picture I got was a medieval Scottish castle or something like that,” he said looking at the structure. “Not quite the same. But it is a castle.
The “castle” is an ancient fortress made of mud brick walls the completely surround a number of buildings. There’s some dispute over exactly when the walls were built. Some say it was put up in the 1200’s to protect Ghengis Khan’s hunting lodge. Cobb says it could be even older than that.
“The rumors are that it was built by Alexander the Great when his army came across during the ancient times. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it looks like it’s that old.”
Alexander the Great and his men came through Afghanistan around 330 BC. However old it is, the fortress has been weathered down over the years by Afghanistan’s harsh elements. Some Marines joke that it looks like an ice cream cake that’s been left out too long.
Marines say the
The heat in this part of Afghanistan is enough to make anything melt. The day we were at Castle Kanashin it was 110 degrees. That’s a big change for Cobb, who is a native of Ypsilanti, Michigan. He says the temperature there rises to maybe 75 degrees this time of year. But he’s acclimating to the weather. He didn’t even realize the mercury had risen that high.
“Putting up with the temperatures the past couple of weeks, the difference between 95 and 110 isn’t very much,” he told us.
Cobb has been a Marine for 6-and-a-half years. This is his first deployment. He pushed for the assignment and is glad he was sent to the castle instead of one of the bigger bases.
“This is kind of the tip of the spear right here, the frontier,” he told us while showing us around.
Cobb is responsible for keeping track of all the manpower in the 1st LAR’s area of operation (AO).
“Nobody comes in and out of castle, or even the AO at large without me finding out about it. “
That means he’s sitting at a desk. But at the castle, it feels like a throne.
Lt Jeff Cobb