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

4 The Port
Headquarters and Bravo Troops celebrated
New Year’s at 33,000 feet over Shannon
Airport, Ireland, and landed at Brussels
where the aircraft refueled and took on a new flight crew. Some
of the soldiers had developed a strong attachment to the flight
attendants during the journey, and spent time waiting on the
tarmac saying goodbye. Soon the new pilots arrived; both
were Air Force veterans who had flown combat missions over
North and South Vietnam, and joined the group in the discussion.
They seemed to take their role in this war personally and
commented that they hoped the soldiers’ “hands would not be
tied the way theirs were in Vietnam.” They were obviously
pleased that the country was behind the deployment and supporting
its troops. 1
The flight into Saudi Arabia took the squadron from Brussels,
southeast across France to Cairo. Then it traveled south,
down the Egyptian coastline for about 300 miles, turning east
over the Red Sea. Dawn broke as they crossed over the water
and glimpsed, for the first time, what the Arabian Desert
looked like. The land was huge and empty, with wadis, mesas,
and plains colored in various shades of purple, browns, and
grays. The terrain looked like someone had emptied an ocean
bottom of water and plants and left it standing. It was awesome
and sobering to realize that the soldiers would soon be in the
middle of it.
Before touching down at King Fahd International Airport at
1200 hours local (or Charlie) time CPT Morrison, in his role as
flight commander, spent some time talking to the crew. He discovered
they were all volunteers; for flying into Saudi Arabia,
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