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

The Breach 131
The thousands of vehicles on the march were impressive and
gave the soldiers a sense of invincibility. Within thirty-six hours,
the 3rd Armored Division would be locked in a heavy fight with
the center of the Tawakalna Mechanized Division’s battle line. 40
Shortly before 1130 hours, the division arrived on PL New
Jersey. Now the squadron began the task of organizing the battle
positions. This included moving more than sixty prisoners to the
rear, under CSM Cobb’s control, and destroying all non-American
equipment. The engineers approached the task of equipment
and bunker destruction enthusiastically, and brought forward a
couple of bulldozers to help do the job. Not having the means to
transport the captured Iraqis to the rear, the ever-resourceful
Cobb borrowed the empty flat-bed trucks that had carried the
bulldozers forward and loaded them up with the Iraqis. He then
moved them to the prisoner-of-war collection point in the
brigade support area. 41
Numerous enemy bunkers and vehicles were in the
squadron battle position, many of them belonging to artillery
and support units. Despite the terrific bombardment from land
and air, a large number of the Iraqi bunkers appeared to be untouched.
The troops spent some time looking through them
and found a varied assortment of equipment, binoculars, radios,
maps, and night vision goggles. Much of it would find its
way back to the Cavalry Museum at Fort Riley. Of special interest
to the American soldiers were the living conditions of their
opponents. The structures were small but livable, with old mattresses,
lanterns, water cans, and even books. Some had little
notches in the wall that held a picture of the family they had left
behind. It brought a human face to war and a sense of how terrible
it really was. 42
Majors Bill Wimbish and John Burdan took some time to examine
this complex while they were out inspecting the
squadron. Those they saw were all below ground level with a
raised roof that allowed the occupants to scan the terrain
around them and fire at someone if necessary, and you could
stand upright in most of them. The roofs were made of thin
sheets of corrugated steel over a set of wooden rafters. The
builders had piled only eight to ten inches of dirt on top of the
metal, and it was obvious the roof could not withstand a hit by