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

56 The Road to Safwan
closely controlled by Army Central Command’s (ARCENT’s)
22nd Support Command. For example, there were only 1,300
HETS (Heavy Equipment Transporters) in the entire theater, including
tractors from several coalition partners, to carry all of
the coalition’s tanks and smaller tracked vehicles. The result was
a backlog of combat power in port assembly areas waiting to
move out to the desert. 3 The support command’s movement
control center gave Wimbish permission to move some wheeled
vehicles as well as a handful of HETs to carry some of the
squadron’s tracked vehicles to the desert. MAJ Wimbish led the
squadron main body out from the port early in the morning on
January 8. The troops themselves traveled on leased Saudi Arabian
busses that were designed for use inside urban areas. For
army leaders used to uniformity and precision, this convoy had
something of a “gypsy” air as army and commercial HETs intermingled
with the five red and white civilian buses. The local national
drivers were obviously not too happy carrying American
soldiers toward the Iraqi border and were fearful that a war
would break out soon. 1LT Matthew Vanderfeltz, the support
platoon leader, greeted this convoy outside the assembly area
shortly after 1800 hours that same day.
Wilson now had about twenty-five percent of his squadron
in the assembly area and more soldiers and equipment were arriving
every day. His leaders spent the next few days organizing
the essential elements of survival in a primitive environment.
Mail began to trickle in, but until the end of the war, it
would never arrive as quickly as it should have. The squadron
borrowed two large general purpose (GP-Medium as they were
called) tents from the Aviation Brigade and additional tents
from the Division Support Command general supply section,
to get most of the soldiers under cover. Those without cover
continued to sleep in their vehicles. Water was also a problem
as there was initially only one 500-gallon water trailer (called a
water buffalo) and a large assortment of five-gallon storage
containers, to serve all of the cooking and sanitation needs of
more than 200 soldiers. With the resupply point a two-hour
round trip away, water had to be carefully managed.
Troopers traveling about the vast TAA sometimes got lost.
On one occasion a vehicle containing the medical platoon