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

118 The Road to Safwan
helped turn it around and send it off in the right direction:
north into Iraq. 6
B Troop also had a problem after crossing into Iraq. Mike
Bills’s eastern platoon crossed the berm and hooked a right into
Task Force 2-34 Armor’s column and joined its advance. Apparently,
a combination of a malfunctioning GPS and confusion on
the radio led to this mix up. It took the troop’s executive officer,
1LT Gerald Danussi, about thirty minutes to get everyone heading
on the proper azimuth. 7
However, such incidents were few. As the squadron traveled
through the border berm and into the open area beyond,
MAJ Burdan trailed Ken Pope’s A Troop and LTC Wilson followed
Mike Bills’s B Troop. The farther north they went, the
more difficult it became for the troops to communicate with the
squadron command post still located along the border berm.
Wilson and Burdan kept the advance under control, and when
necessary, relayed information back to the squadron and
brigade headquarters. It also helped that there was a great deal
of “cross-talk,” a term in vogue at the time, between the two
troop commanders, thus improving coordination between the
units. 8 In addition, as the sun rose, around 0645 hours, Wilson
directed an aviation scout-weapons team to fly just behind each
of the two ground troops to provide extra security, monitor the
advance, and maintain visual contact with the 3rd Squadron,
2nd Cavalry on the left and Task Force 2-34 Armor that was on
the right. 9
Most soldiers were concerned about Iraq using chemical
weapons. They all knew Saddam Hussein had a reputation for
employing them in his previous wars and fully expected a
chemical strike sometime during the conflict, a prospect no one
welcomed. The first indication of chemical use came through intelligence
communications channels a little after 0800. Apparently,
Marines attacking into Kuwait had encountered mustard
gas mines in their sector. Prudently, the command post warned
the troop commanders to be on the look-out for mines in the
brigade’s sector. A half hour later, the squadron TOC received an
update from division that the Iraqi mines had not detonated,
and that it was not clear that they were really chemical weapons.
These messages reinforced the old adage that the first reports,