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

226 The Road to Safwan
civilians over the preceding weeks, they had little fear of humans.
In the days immediately after the end of the war, soldiers
would often catch dogs in the process of ripping apart and devouring
human remains. It was a sight that sickened anyone
who saw it and sometimes resulted in a few rifle rounds being
fired to scare the pack off so the body could be recovered. If soldiers
left a tent unoccupied, the dogs would sneak in and steal
any food they could. The soldiers in the squadron’s FM radio
retransmission station were grateful that they had barbed wire
surrounding their position. At night the dogs often closed in on
the station and tried to get to them.
On the other hand, A Troop’s 3rd Platoon, who had the responsibility
for Check Point #1, found that the dogs in their area
were a benefit. They provided an early warning especially at
night, since they were territorial and immediately started to
bark when someone approached. Lieutenant Palmieri also noticed
that the dogs liked the Americans but barked and snarled
if Iraqi soldiers came near the checkpoint. Perhaps the dogs had
been amongst them just a little too long. 28
On April 10 the word finally arrived from division to begin
preparing to pull out of Iraq. The troopers eagerly began to prepare
for the movement. At the same time the squadron conducted
M3 ranges to get new crew combinations qualified. On
April 13, MG Rhame flew out to the troops still watching the
border to reward those soldiers who had earned awards for
their performance in Desert Storm. That morning the squadron
had CPT VJ Tedesco conduct a recon of the squadron’s route
from An Nasiriyah to AA Huebner located near King Khalid
Military City in Saudi Arabia. The recon allowed the S3 shop to
complete the movement order that would be issued once the
order to pull out of Iraq arrived. On April 14, the formal order
was received directing the squadron’s return to Saudi Arabia at
0800 hours the next day.