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

206 The Road to Safwan
British troops found themselves in an extended and expensive
insurgency. During early March 1991, the 1-4 Cavalry remained
under the burning oil well fires of northern Kuwait near
Safwan recovering from the recent conflict, conducting operational
missions, and beginning to work with the refugees fleeing
the retribution of Saddam Hussein’s reconstituted forces. 6
The first thing the squadron had to do was recover from the
combat operations of the last month. After Schwarzkopf’s departure,
the 2nd Brigade, with the 1-4 Cavalry, remained in control
of the Safwan area. Right behind the commander, all of the
support troops and “strap-hangers” present for the ceremony
departed. While the brigade was stuck with much of the clean
up, it also had the claim on the great deal of food and refreshments
left behind. It was of a quality and quantity which the
cavalry troopers had not seen for months, and for two days they
ate fresh chicken and eggs, drank soda and “near beer,” and
lived as close to luxury as they had experienced since they left
the port. They were amazed by the apparent life of luxury for
those who worked far to the rear in corps and army-level units. 7
This brief interaction between battle-weary troopers and
their rear-echelon comrades highlighted some apparent discrepancies
among those who fought the war. For example, in
March the squadron’s troopers still had problems getting desert
boots and uniforms. In some instances, they sent their wives to
the post exchange back at Fort Riley to buy boots and ship them
to Iraq. In at least one case, a soldier with extra-large feet was
using a pair of Iraqi boots, since the Army did not have any
available in his size. However, it seemed to the cavalrymen that
each and every “rear echelon” soldier was strutting around
Safwan in their new desert uniforms. While it was a perception
that was not quite true, it was one that stuck with the troops. 8
Nevertheless, with the campaign over, the quality of life began
improving. The mail began arriving with some regularity
and CPT Ken Stokes’s personnel section began processing individual
awards and catching up on the immense backlog of administrative
paperwork that had accumulated during the last
month, a difficult process in the inhospitable environment.
Troops began taking showers, sometimes in improvised stalls
as was the case in A Troop where they rigged a diesel engine