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

228 The Road to Safwan
minus those supporting CPT Philbrick, departed later that
morning and arrived at AA Huebner that afternoon without
any incidents.
The squadron main body consisting of the ground troops
began moving at 0800 on April 15. The troopers, veterans of
many a tactical road march, were quite efficient. They found
themselves actually ahead of the two aviation battalions that
had missed their start times. The brigade staff accused Wilson’s
command of jumping to the head of the line to be the first out
of Iraq. After several hours the truth emerged, and at the first
rest stop two hours down the road, the squadron pulled over to
refuel and let the aviators pass. By late afternoon the entire
command had joined back up with the division in AA Allen. 2
The squadron’s officers were in a good mood as they arrived
at their temporary assembly area. Wilson and Burdan
drove out to the nearby 1st Brigade command post to check in
on the division’s progress and to say hello. When speaking to
the S3, MAJ Kevin Huddy, about the next day’s activities it became
immediately apparent that the division had given both
the 1st Brigade and the squadron the same routes and movement
times. Rather than send it up the chain of command for a
decision, the two operations officers did some quick adjusting
to the squadron’s schedule so it would clear the area prior to
the 1st Brigade’s start time. The new start was at 0515 hours and
the brigade S3 said he would forward the change to division
headquarters.
That night the command group and Burdan’s TOC staff celebrated
their imminent departure from Iraq. Specialist Adam
Fuller pulled out his music box and they sang to the country
music tapes that they had brought from home. They broke out
all the candy, canned fruits, and sodas that they had each been
hoarding and passed them around. They would need them no
more as they were on the way home.
While the ground troops were closing in on their assembly
area, the squadron air element under CPT Philbrick supported
the 4th Brigade that had a division-directed mission of checking
the routes back to Saudi Arabia. The brigade was to locate any
friendly or serviceable Iraqi equipment left behind along the
route, and locate any obstacles that would hinder the ground