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

Coming Home 229
vehicles’ movement. The brigade assigned the squadron a portion
of the routes to reconnoiter. CPT Philbrick and his flight
operations section controlled the squadron’s reconnaissance effort.
Working from his operations van, with a small service support
team consisting of fuel and maintenance support, he managed
the aviators’ activities in the sky. At the end of the first day
he pulled off the supply route he was following, moved to
higher ground, and called in his scout-weapons teams. Establishing
a perimeter with trucks and helicopters they settled
down for the night. 3
The next morning the squadron made its start time, but the
4-1 Aviation Battalion showed up on the same march route and
again delayed its departure. Apparently, the battalion had not
been able to make it all the way to AA Huebner in Saudi Arabia,
as was their original plan, so it just stopped for the night at
an intermediate location. In the morning, they began moving
when they wanted to, without any obvious control. Wilson had
the squadron pull over to allow the aviation unit’s fast-moving
wheeled vehicles to pass. Of course, that in turn put his unit behind,
and the S3 had to contact the 1st Brigade and ask them to
slow down. However, that was a minor headache as the
weather was wonderful and the route of march took the troopers
right through the division’s original breach site where they
had fought almost two months earlier. While crossing the berm
they passed the sign that said: “Welcome to Iraq, Courtesy of
the Big Red One.” 4
Continuing past the berm and into the area it had been responsible
for screening earlier, the troops noticed that the area
now was relatively deserted, so different from those days just
before the attack. Most of the equipment was gone and rain had
turned the arid desert floor green. Now Bedouins and their
flocks of sheep and camels occupied the squadron’s old screen
line and AA Junction City.
The squadron stopped just before noon on the north side of
the Tapline Road at the scheduled stopping point for the night.
Of course, the troopers were anxious to continue south to the final
destination, AA Huebner, only an hour or so to the south. It
was a hot spring day and Burdan spoke with LTC Mike Ryan,
the division’s provost marshal. Ryan thought it was possible to