The Road to Safwan: The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry in the 1991 ...

Combat Command Carter 87
watchful eyes of platoon tank gunners, he was able to determine
that they were indeed friendly vehicles and notified his
lieutenant. It was a corps-level chemical platoon that was lost
and trying to find its way to the 1st Cavalry Division on the
combat command’s right flank. MAJ Burdan drove to the unit
and discovered that the platoon’s young lieutenant had no
maps, no compass, and no GPS receiver. He was completely
confused and believed his platoon was on the north (Iraqi) side
of the border, rather than still in Saudi Arabia. Burdan got him
reoriented and sent him and his platoon in the right direction.
Had this platoon managed to cross the berm, its new state-ofthe-art
vehicles would have been a welcome addition to the
Iraqi Army’s inventory. A similar incident took place on February
5 as a petroleum re-supply unit was looking for a place to
establish a fuel dump. Its senior headquarters had given the
commander a location north of the squadron’s screen line. Forward
of the cavalry screen is not the place to store large
amounts of fuel and the cavalry sent them back to the rear. 12
Surveillance operations from February 3 through 6 were
generally uneventful. The squadron’s daily journal logs, maintained
by Captains VJ Tedesco and Scott Sauer in the tactical
operations center, indicate that daytime operations focused on
sending out aviation SWT patrols, coordinating with flank and
supporting units, and gathering the occasional Iraqi soldier
who came south of the border berm seeking to surrender. During
the hours of darkness, scouts sometimes picked up unidentified
movement on the horizon or occasional flares. These variously
colored pyrotechnics apparently had some sort of
meaning to the Iraqi unit deployed several miles north. The division
G2 believed the flares helped orient Iraqi night patrols.
From time to time, the squadron requested AH-64 Apache helicopters
to fly forward to investigate this or that sighting. 13
The activity along the border began to increase the morning
of February 5. That day, B Troop scouts watched a light armored
vehicle move along the border berm. Possibly, the
squadron’s attack on the bulldozer (the presumed AML) the
day before had caused the Iraqi commander to wonder what
was going on in his security zone. That night observation posts,
LRSD teams, and GSR crews sent a constant stream of reports