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

Combat Command Carter 89
the squadron commander disarmed, searched, and secured the
captive, who indicated that a couple of his buddies were still in
the area. Leaving his prisoner bound on the ground under the
watchful eye of a Cobra, Wilson flew in his OH-58C to the nearest
B Troop observation post to get some help to search the complex
and recover the prisoner. Staff Sergeants Jimmy Burnett
and Alvin Fugate were manning that OP with their vehicles
and crews. They pulled out of their position and followed the
commander, still in his helicopter, back to the village, where
they secured the prisoner and conducted a hasty search of the
surrounding buildings. They investigated each building, but
were not able to find any signs of additional soldiers. Finally,
Wilson figured they had been there long enough and loaded the
terrified Iraqi in a Bradley and headed back to the screen line. 16
At around 1300 hours, A Troop scouts reported seeing more
activity in the village. Wilson decided to send another team
back into the town, this time led by his executive officer MAJ
Wimbish. Since tracked vehicles were not supposed to be forward
of the screen line, as they had been in the morning, he decided
to use the squadron’s old UH-1 (Huey) to carry a fiveman
patrol of A Troop scouts led by SSG Wehage. CPT
Morrison, upon hearing what was going on, volunteered to accompany
MAJ Wimbish and help him out as needed. In addition,
Wimbish had air support from an aerial scout-weapons
team and both ground troops ready to launch forward if the patrol
got into trouble. They landed near the village and the patrol
conducted a search of the buildings, taking about one hour.
MAJ Wimbish, concerned that they were taking so long, asked
CPT Morrison to locate the team and pull them out. A short
while later the team returned to the UH-1. While they had
found no Iraqis, they did come away with some radios and documents
in Arabic that later turned out to be items left behind by
the Saudis when they had evacuated their base. 17
MG Rhame was furious when he heard what was going on
in the cavalry squadron’s sector. They were supposed to be on
the line quietly observing the border area and protecting the
corps and division logistics bases. Not only were they out blowing
up vehicles on the border, but also they were launching dismounted
raids. To make matters even worse, in violation of