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

230 The Road to Safwan
continue the move and get there before the end of the day. Unbeknownst
to Burdan, his request to division headquarters to
press on was the third or fourth call from various units that MG
Rhame, who was trying to orchestrate a controlled move and
not a mad dash, had received that morning. Danger 6, as he was
called, chewed out Burdan and told the squadron to “stay
where they were and do what they were told.” 5 So most of the
squadron spent the night in column with the soldiers camped
by the side of their vehicles.
CPT Philbrick and the aviators had spent the day continuing
their mission of ensuring that the division did not leave any
equipment inside Iraq. They had found a few scattered pieces
and reported them to LTC Cook, at the 4th Brigade command
post, who ran the operation for COL Mowery. At the end of the
day, once again, CPT Philbrick picked out an assembly area and
gathered in the air elements for the night.
The next day, April 17, the wind was blowing hard and the
visibility was down to about a quarter of a mile. With the assistance
of the military police, the squadron crossed Tapline Road
in two places without a problem. Crossing this road was always
dangerous, as there was still a large amount of traffic and the local
drivers were not expecting any cross-traffic. As the visibility
worsened, the squadron slowed its speed to prevent any break
in the column. Moving close to the assembly area, the vehicles
approached the pre-positioned HEMTT fuel tankers for one last
squadron top-off. At 1326 hours, the squadron sent in its closing
report to the 4th Brigade headquarters, indicating that it
was now in Assembly Area Huebner. 6 CPT Philbrick and the air
troops completed the mission a couple of hours later and rejoined
the squadron at AA Huebner.
The squadron’s new home was part of a desert area designed
to hold the entire division. Unlike the previous TAAs
and FAAs, this assembly area was purely administrative and
intended as the location to disassemble the Big Red One and
ship it back to the United States. Units lined their vehicles up as
if in a motor pool and the troops headed for large sleeping tents
with showers close by. In the middle of AA Huebner were several
large “fest tents,” of the kind found in Germany during October
Fest and other celebrations. These contained a pizza