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

Deployment 33
the chief of the division’s G3 plans section, describe the land to
which they would soon travel. Osterberg, along with the division
commander and other key officers, had recently returned
from a reconnaissance to Southwest Asia, and his slides displayed
the absolute desolation found in northern Saudi Arabia.
Rather than the expected sand dunes and palm trees, he
showed them rocks, hills, dry riverbeds, and little vegetation,
and surprised them with his discussion of the weather by
warning the troopers to bring gloves and long underwear. 11
With the equipment gone, leaders spent a great deal of effort
revising the tactical standard operation procedures. The
TACSOP, as it is known in military jargon, provides the basic
outline of how to operate in the field. This document provided
a framework for routines: radio procedures, how to set up a
command post, how to conduct a road march, and how to request
and execute a medical evacuation operation. The S3-Air,
CPT Scott M. Sauer, took the lead in refining, publishing, and
distributing this essential document.
In the middle of all of this hustle and bustle, troopers continued
to wrestle with all kinds of personal issues. One of the
more interesting incidents concerned CPT Vincent J. (VJ)
Tedesco. Tedesco was attending the Armor Officers’ Advanced
Course at Fort Knox, with orders to the squadron, when the
Iraqi Army invaded Kuwait. Having just returned from an assignment
with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Germany,
he and his wife, Lianne, an army nurse, looked forward
to having their first joint assignment together after almost five
years of marriage. However, just as Lianne was about to leave
for the United States, her unit, the 97th General Hospital in Germany,
the army issued its stop-loss order. Now she had to remain
in Europe at work until the end of the war, and they
would not see each other before VJ headed for Saudi Arabia.
After many phone calls, the Armor School allowed him to graduate
a few days early from Fort Knox and delay his arrival to
the squadron in order to fly back to Germany for a short leave
and a few precious days with his wife. Then it was back in the
air and travel to Fort Riley. 12 Hidden behind the visible preparations
and departure activities were many similar incidents, as
families struggled with the emotional and financial problems of