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

Coming Home 233
ing unbearable. Finally, in accordance with the division’s redeployment
schedule, they packed their equipment, pulled down
their tents, and began heading to the port. The squadron departed
over three days in six main groups: an advance party
under CPT Harmon, a wheeled convoy under CPT Morrison,
the air troops under CPT Philbrick, a tracked convoy under
CPT Bills, and the rear party under CPT Pope. Finally, the
squadron trail party, under MAJ Wimbish, would ensure that
any last minute division requirements were accomplished.
On April 21, the squadron advance party departed and
checked in with the division’s redeployment operations center
in Khobar Towers, where much of the squadron had stayed
back in January. On the way down to the port, Captains VJ
Tedesco and Steve Harmon came across an accident involving
two Saudi civilian automobiles. One car had only a young man
in it while the other vehicle contained a badly injured husband
and wife. A small crowd of people had gathered at the wreck
but, amazingly, no one tried to get the occupants out. The
Americans pulled the family out of the car and free of the
wreckage, began to administer first aid and called for help. The
military police arrived and called for an ambulance. Meanwhile
the wife had stopped breathing. The MP looked at Tedesco and
asked if it was OK to begin mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. This
was something we normally wouldn’t have thought much
about in the United States, but in Saudi Arabia one could not be
sure which cultural norm would be violated by having an
American male “kiss” a Saudi woman, even if it was to save her
life. Tedesco did not agonize and told the MP to do it. The
woman soon began breathing again and was loaded onto an
ambulance en route to a hospital. Tedesco was not sure if she ultimately
survived. Nevertheless, the Americans continued
down the road to link up with the rest of the column, feeling
pretty good about their act of kindness. 8
On April 23, at 1700 hours, the wheeled vehicle convoy, under
the control of CPT Morrison, departed AA Huebner. First
stop for the wheels was KKMC where the soldiers spent the
night cleaning their vehicles on the large wash racks. The wash
points were set up in a similar manner to those found in major
training areas such as Grafenwöhr or Hohenfels, Germany.