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

48 The Road to Safwan
to find enough experienced soldiers to crew his own vehicles.
The 2nd Brigade provided some experienced sergeants to command
tanks, while Wilson met with other tank battalion commanders
to work deals to exchange privates for more experienced
specialists. Finally, a few crews arrived from the United
States and joined the squadron. While B Troop, which already
had a cadre of leaders, was able to get its tanks manned and
ready relatively quickly, the newly formed A Troop would not
be ready for almost a month. 14
As a new organization, CPT Pope’s command also struggled
to find basic issue items that the other soldiers and crews
were able to bring from the United States. These shortages included
armored crew helmets (called CVCs for Cover, Vehicle
Crewmember) that contained headsets and microphones for
communications, protective masks, machine guns for all vehicles,
night vision goggles and radios. The 4th Brigade Commander,
COL Mowery, went to great lengths to ensure the
troopers would be ready when the battle began. MG Rhame
and BG William G. Carter III, the Assistant Division Commander-Maneuver,
also visited the troop regularly to ensure that all
that was humanly possible was being done to properly outfit
the unit. 15
Meanwhile, the two aviation troops waited in the rain at the
tent city for their helicopters to arrive by ship. When they finally
arrived around January 15, the crews jumped into action.
They helped move them off the ship and into an aviation holding
area. They removed the protective plastic from each aircraft
and began the long checklist of steps that were required before
they could fly. Each helicopter received modifications to its
electronics and navigation equipment. Of course, “friction,” an
ever-present participant in military operations, reared its ugly
head when crew chiefs discovered that much of the required
avionics and radio equipment had already been shipped out to
the desert assembly area. Chief Warrant Officers Kirk Waymire
and Craig Winters borrowed radios from another unit and flew
the squadron’s old UH-1 out to TAA Roosevelt to bring back
everything they needed. The air troops lost a couple of days of
preparation time while these aviators flew out, found the
squadron’s assembly area, located the aviation troops’ milvans,