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

178 The Road to Safwan
continuously that his surrender was difficult because the Americans
appeared to continue to shoot at him and his soldiers
when he tried to surrender. He obviously did not realize that
many of his comrades in other units did not wish to give up but
were trying to fight their way through the squadron’s position.
In the dark, it was difficult to differentiate one group of Iraqis
from another. 51 B Troop’s SSG Michael Cowden noticed that the
Iraqis continued to try to evade the squadron once they discovered
who controlled the road. In one instance he wounded an
Iraqi lieutenant with a burst of coax from his Bradley as he tried
to evade capture. Cowden and one of his scouts moved out and
captured the lieutenant and the men with him and brought
them back to the troop medics. CPT Bills was there and recalled
that the lieutenant spoke excellent English, and he asked him
“Are you now going to shoot me and my men?” Bills replied no
and pointed out how the American medics were treating the
wounded Iraqis. 52
Some Iraqi soldiers took precautions before they surrendered.
Prior to approaching the American lines they buried
their weapons, knives, and the jewels, watches, and other loot
they had stolen from Kuwait. 53 Others were still loaded with
loot when they stumbled right into the American positions.
Among the confiscated items were clothing, radios, and televisions.
As night wore on the Iraqis were caught with TVs, radios,
and jewelry, looking like they had just looted a department
store. 54 One particular Iraqi resisted the standard search. After
some effort, the Americans discovered a pack of playing cards
illustrated with photographs of scantily clad women. The Iraqi
soldier was very embarrassed while the cavalry troopers were
quite amused. 55
As it continued to get dark, Wilson found himself worrying
about two separate problems: the rapidly growing numbers of
Iraqis he had under guard and the ever-present possibility of an
enemy attack from the north. 56 Several divisions of the Republican
Guard Forces Command were operating just north of Wilson’s
location. Most of these units, including the Hammurabi
Armored Division, had not yet fought American forces and
were still capable of attacking as small a target as Wilson’s command.
Iraqi units had attacked American forces on numerous