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

Safwan 193
and it was to move to and seize the airfield near Safwan and occupy
it in preparation for the surrender ceremony. Rhame,
passing along Frank’s guidance, told him to avoid combat (and
re-starting the war) if possible, but to defend himself as appropriate.
These orders, from Wilson’s perspective, were just what
he needed: clear senior commander’s intent, maximum flexibility
for the ground commander in an unclear situation, and no
hint of the tension and politics taking place between division,
corps, and army headquarters. 26 Wilson now had a fairly powerful,
and veteran, force at his disposal, with two tank-reinforced
ground troops, two air cavalry troops, and an Apache attack
helicopter company that Rhame had placed under his
operational control. 27
Wilson and the squadron staff rapidly put together the
needed orders and finished briefing the command group
shortly before 0500 hours. Meanwhile the remainder of the
squadron was up and preparing for the mission. The aviators
needed little time because they had prepared their aircraft prior
to shutting down for the night. The ground troops quickly
stowed their gear and began organizing the vehicles into the
proper formations. By 0615 hours the squadron was on the
move with its two ground troops going cross-country, northnortheast
in standard traveling overwatch formation. 28 With the
Safwan Mountain (Jabal Sanam) as their guide, A Troop moved
in the east and B Troop moved on the western side of the zone. 29
LTC Wilson followed behind B Troop and MAJ Burdan followed
behind A Troop. Forward of each ground troop was an
aerial scout-weapons team (SWT) consisting of OH-58C scout
helicopters and Cobra attack helicopters. One team was led by
2LT Tom Schwartz (a Ft. Hood augmentee) from D Troop and
the other by CW4 Bruce Thomas from C Troop. Other SWTs
would be rotated in throughout the mission as the morning
continued. The AH-64 Apache company was kept on the
ground at a holding area ready to respond if Wilson’s troopers
got into trouble. 30
Rhame could tell Wilson little about the enemy situation. The
1st Infantry Division’s Main Command Post had only recently
reorganized after the ground offensive and its G-2 (Intelligence)
section was unable to provide the squadron with any informa-