{"id":577784,"date":"2010-05-25T10:02:01","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T14:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/?p=19890"},"modified":"2010-05-25T10:02:01","modified_gmt":"2010-05-25T14:02:01","slug":"serving-at-the-%e2%80%9ccastle%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/577784","title":{"rendered":"Serving at The \u201cCastle\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lt. Jeff Cobb had heard about the \u201ccastle\u201d at Forward Operating Base Kanashin when he got his orders to deploy to Afghanistan with the Marines. But the 27-year-old wasn\u2019t prepared for what he saw when he got there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe picture I got was a medieval Scottish castle or something like that,\u201d he said looking at the structure. \u201cNot quite the same. But it is a castle.<\/p>\n

The \u201ccastle\u201d is an ancient fortress made of mud brick walls the completely surround a number of buildings.\u00a0 There\u2019s some dispute over exactly when the walls were built. Some say it was put up in the 1200’s to protect Ghengis Khan\u2019s hunting lodge. Cobb says it could be even older than that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rumors are that it was built by Alexander the Great when his army came across during the ancient times. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true or not, but it looks like it\u2019s that old.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s harsh elements. Some Marines joke that it looks like an ice cream cake that\u2019s been left out too long.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Marines say the <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019s acclimating to the weather. He didn\u2019t even realize the mercury had risen that high.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutting up with the temperatures the past couple of weeks, the difference between 95 and 110 isn\u2019t very much,\u201d he told us.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is kind of the tip of the spear right here, the frontier,\u201d he told us while showing us around.<\/p>\n

Cobb is responsible for keeping track of all the manpower in the 1st<\/sup> LAR\u2019s area of operation (AO).<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody comes in and out of castle, or even the AO at large without me finding out about it. \u201c<\/p>\n

That means he\u2019s sitting at a desk. But at the castle, it feels like a throne.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lt Jeff Cobb <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lt. Jeff Cobb had heard about the \u201ccastle\u201d at Forward Operating Base Kanashin when he got his orders to deploy to Afghanistan with the Marines. But the 27-year-old wasn\u2019t prepared for what he saw when he got there. \u201cThe picture I got was a medieval Scottish castle or something like that,\u201d he said looking at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}