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

180 The Road to Safwan
up and surrendered. As Parkey got out of his truck, intending to
search the Iraqis and destroy their armored carrier before continuing,
one of the Iraqis grabbed another and said in broken
English: “General, General . . . see I give you General.” Upon
closer inspection Parkey realized that they had indeed captured
an Iraqi general. After some tense moments, moving back towards
the 3rd Armored Division’s lines, he was able to bring his
Iraqi captives back to the scout platoon he had left only a short
while before. Rather than try to risk movement at night, Parkey
decided to remain where he was until morning. 59
As night approached, B Troop’s 2LT Adrian Lowndes and
his crew were still back at Objective Norfolk and were not yet
done with the tank’s temporary repairs. Rather than trying to
work under lights, with the possibility of drawing Iraqi fire, he
decided to wait until morning to finish the repairs. He felt quite
alone, as he had seen no other vehicles since the squadron had
departed that morning. He also had no idea what the enemy
situation was and thought it best to set up a tight defensive
perimeter and wait for first light. He shut his vehicles down
and reverted to using only PVS-7 night-vision goggles for security.
Later that night they picked up movement as the first of
several Iraqi patrols moved through the area. Apparently, these
groups were coming down from the north and stopping every
now and then to check out a vehicle or bunker. They seemed to
be organized, as they were able to rely on some kind of artillery,
probably mortars, to support their searches. On one occasion,
this indirect fire hit quite close to Lowndes’s group and those
who were outside their vehicles had to dive for cover underneath
them. While several groups of these Iraqis passed by the
Americans, they never stopped to investigate. By dawn, the
Iraqis were gone and the lieutenant and his band were alone in
the desert again. They finally completed the repairs and began
trying to find the rest of the squadron. However, It would be almost
another twenty-four hours before this band would find
their troop again. 60
Probably no aspect of this operation was more impressive
than the way the individual cavalry soldiers made the transition
from efficient killers to angels of mercy. Time and again,
troopers moved beyond their battle line into the dangerous no-