"Qala-I-Bist"

So in our area of operation (AO) happens to be some ruins of palaces from Alexander the Great and many more conquerors that followed. There happens to be several smaller palaces along the Helmand River but the main one, Qala-I-Bist (castle at Bist), we recently visited. A few pics above. The palace was built in a huge rock mountain along the river a couple thousand years ago, or if my history it wrong, whenever the heck Alex the Great was hanging out in this area for vacation. So, at the top, used to be a much more. The surviving part is in the rock itself. You look down these huge shafts that are bricked about 200 feet down into the rock. It's absolutely amazing. When you look around, the basic people in this country can't build better than this, 2000 years later, albeit some western trained people can throw some construction up. (not up to code, mind you). Anyway, they built it with canals running through the base of the palace, channeled from the Helmand R. They say the Soviets still used it when they occupied the country.
I haven't had much research time but some words translated from Arabic to English have multiple spellings. The area is no longer referred to as "Bist" but is "Bost." So, if you are history minded you can google up Qala-I-Bist or Qali Bost or Bist etc. You know how this game works. There are interesting articles etc on the net. Moving on....
Happy to inform you that the striped hyena is still alive, well and feisty. The monkey, however, has found a new home. Don't know if that was at a dinner table or if the monkey moved to a new check point with the prior crew.
Half the police checkpoints we went to on this mission had several, if not all, young lads high as kites. Nice, eh. Go patrol. Can you see? Can you walk? Can you shoot for God's sake. Where the hell is your commander?!!!!! I'm a doc on the edge, you're lucky I don't shoot you just to have something to do!!!!