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

144 The Road to Safwan
lane for each of his three battalions. 24 Throughout, Burdan remained
with the 2nd Armored Cavalry and helped to work out
any coordination difficulties between the division’s brigades
and the regiment.
As the 1st Infantry Division soldiers approached their designated
lanes, they passed the wreckage of an Iraqi mechanized
brigade whose burning tanks and fighting vehicles marked the
way to the front lines. They drove by batteries of American
MLRS and M109 systems firing at targets a dozen miles to the
east. As the division’s tank and Bradley crews neared the passage
lane, main-gun and machine-gun tracers shot through the
darkness just above the ground. The horizon, in Iraqi territory,
was filled with blazing fires and massive explosions. 25 Approaching
the rear of the 2nd Armored Cavalry’s defenses, they
could see the many multi-colored chemical lights that each regimental
vehicle had affixed to the back of its turret. 26
Shortly before 2130 hours, 1st Infantry Division brigade and
battalion S3s and executive officers, moving slightly ahead of
their main bodies, jumped down from their vehicles and conducted
last-minute coordination with their regimental counterparts.
It was suddenly quiet across the thirty-kilometer front, as
the stationary unit held its fire. Scouts on the forward line fired
green star clusters to mark the exact passage lanes. Then, moving
past the 2nd ACR soldiers and burning T-72 tanks, the 1st
Infantry Division assumed responsibility for the battle. The regimental
squadrons remained in position to assist the 1st Infantry
units in their passage. 27 During the next several hours,
Rhame’s tanks, Bradleys, and field artillery would eliminate the
two brigades of Iraqi defenders who stood in their way in what
came to be called the Battle of Norfolk. 28
Some of the fireworks the approaching 1st Infantry Division
soldiers saw that night were caused by their own 1st Battalion,
1st Aviation’s attack helicopters. LTC Ronald Richelsdorfer’s
Apaches attacked the 9th Armored and 18th Mechanized
Brigade’s second tactical echelon at about 2100 hours. 29 At least
two battalions of the Tawakalna Division and one from the 12th
Armored Division were deployed along that line. In addition,
there were dozens of artillery batteries, command and control
facilities, and much of the Iraqi tri-border logistics complex lo-