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

Postwar Operations 217
took out some palm fronds that he had been saving since
Safwan and distributed them to those who had gathered for a
religious service. Even for those not especially devout, there
was something mystical about being in the Holy Land, not far
from the home of Abraham and the early Hebrew tribes. The division’s
chaplains did their best to get around to all the battalions
and conduct services for the interested soldiers. 6
With the combat over, soldiers began to depart and arrive at
the squadron. CPT Eric Esplund from division G2 replaced CPT
Seelinger, who surrendered his role as S2 and headed over to a
company command in the division’s military intelligence battalion.
1SG Parkey left A Troop for the S3 Section to replace
SGM Ken Shields who was returning to the United States to retire.
Before the squadron left for the 2nd Cavalry’s Sector, Bob
Wilson promoted Parkey to sergeant major.
Much of this activity was accomplished in the presence of
the Bedouins who now began returning to the area. It seemed
that you could not go too far without running into an encampment.
They were sheep and camel herders, and it was strange
to see their goatskin or wool-and-cotton tents with a television
antenna stuck out the top of one of them and a Mercedes truck
parked alongside in the middle of the desert. It was a strange
way of life that most of the soldiers could not understand.
The division commander was determined that his command
would keep its fighting edge, just in case the peace talks broke
down. As a result, he had his G3 training section establish a series
of firing ranges throughout the division sector. The individual
brigades operated most of these facilities. The major problem
with them was that these were in the Iraqi desert without natural
backstops or range fans. If a tank round missed its target, it
could travel many miles before it lost its momentum or hit some
unanticipated target. With the Bedouins returning to the area the
probability of hitting one became greater and the squadron’s aviators
flew throughout the range area to move the natives and
their goat herds out of the line of fire and to safer surroundings.
CPT Sauer and SFC Garza planned the squadron’s range participation.
The squadron’s ground troops used the 1st Brigade’s
range from March 26 to 29, firing small arms, machine guns,
hand grenades and other explosives. During the firing practice,