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

168 The Road to Safwan
commander, and his aeroscout weapons team scouted ahead of
the ground troops and identified Iraqi personnel and vehicles
moving north on the highway. His SWT consisted of himself
along with W01 Michael Hull, and a Cobra flown by CW2
Daniel Pinkava along with his gunner, W01 Vincent Stella. The
SWT observed two Chinese Type 59 tanks along the highway
and decided to engage them. Mr. Stella engaged and destroyed
both of the tanks with TOW missiles. CPT Peters reported the
engagement and the situation on the highway and then had to
pull back because his SWT was running extremely low on fuel.
CPT Pope was monitoring the transmissions from CPT Peters
and notified his platoons of what was occurring and then ordered
1st Platoon to lead, followed by 2nd, 3rd, mortars, and
trains. The troopers knew they were approaching the highway
as they could see the power lines that were running parallel to
the highway in the distance. 25
At approximately 1650 hours, SFC Molitor got a report
from SSG Gerald Broennimann, who was leading the A Troop
advance, that there were twenty to thirty soldiers to his front
walking northward. Molitor thought he might need some help
and he asked SSG Micheal Peters to follow him up to the rise
where Broennimann’s Bradley was located. When they linked
up with the scout sergeant, they realized what he was seeing.
Not only was there a small group of soldiers moving, but the
entire Basra Highway stretched out below them. Hundreds of
soldiers were now on the move trying to escape to the north in
military and civilian vehicles. Molitor heard a loud bang to his
right and saw the BMP that Broennimann had just shot from
his Bradley blow up. Two more BMPs were parked next to a
broken-down vehicle, where the crews were trying to take
parts and equipment off it. SFC Molitor quickly engaged and
destroyed the second vehicle with a TOW missile. The
squadron’s fight at the highway was now underway. CPT
Pope contacted Wilson and reported the mass of approaching
Iraqi vehicles and personnel heading north. With those reports
in, Wilson ordered CPT Ken Pope’s A Troop to attack and seize
its objective astride the Basra Highway. 26
The young captain deployed his unit with 1st Platoon on
the left, 2nd Platoon in the center, and his tank and mortar sec-