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

16 Coming Home
Then it was time to go. After six weeks of negotiations,
Iraq formally agreed to the
terms established by the coalition and hostilities
officially ended on April 12. As United Nations observers
began moving into the buffer zone established along
the Kuwait-Iraq border, the VII Corps began pulling out of occupied
Iraq. Almost as quickly as they had attacked into Iraq,
the 1st Infantry Division and its cavalry squadron pulled out.
Like other units, the 1-4 Cavalry experienced four distinct
phases in its redeployment: withdrawal from Iraq, distribution
of personnel and equipment in the staging area called Assembly
Area Huebner, moving to the port and preparing equipment
for shipment to the United States, and the flight home. 1
The first phase was to pull the 4th Brigade back from the
checkpoints along Highway 8 and return to the 1st Infantry Division’s
Assembly Area Allen. The squadron was divided into
five elements: The first element consisted of the air troops’
wheeled vehicles, followed by most of the squadron’s helicopters.
Then the ground troops departed, followed by a detachment
of helicopters and ground vehicles controlled by CPT
Philbrick who was supporting the 4th Brigade’s mission to
identify any American equipment that might still be left on
Iraqi soil. The fifth and final element, an advance party, had already
been sent to AA Huebner to prepare for the reception of
the remainder of the squadron.
The squadron’s air troop wheeled vehicles left early in the
morning on April 15. They had an uneventful journey and arrived
at AA Huebner that afternoon where they set up to receive
the squadron’s helicopters. The squadron’s helicopters,
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