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

58 The Road to Safwan
This was a drill that got the entire unit out of bed, manning its
equipment, and on the perimeter ready to fight each day before
dawn. All of this was a sure sign that they were getting closer
to war. 6
On the eleventh, Wimbish moved the recently arrived S2
and S3 M577 Command Post Vehicles from the port, allowing
the TOC to move out of its tent and into its normal battle configuration.
Even though the squadron now had its command
post up and running, communications between Camp Mackenzie
and the port, where A and B Troop and much of the
squadron remained, were not very good, making it difficult to
monitor the movement of vehicles and equipment to the TAA.
Anticipating an Iraqi attack on January 13, the VII Corps
commander ordered the 1st Infantry Division to be prepared to
occupy a blocking position just north of TAA Roosevelt with
the mission of protecting the corps logistics base (Logbase Alpha).
Early the next morning, B Troop’s M3A2 Cavalry Fighting
Vehicles finally began to arrive in the assembly area by HET.
The staff duty log reported that four were in the assembly area
and five others were “in the desert somewhere.” By 1345 hours,
the troop officers had found eight, and were off searching for
the other. Later that day, division headquarters directed the
cavalry, with only under-strength B Troop, to be prepared for
combat in the event of an Iraqi attack. 7
That night, the division alerted all its elements in TAA Roosevelt,
most of which had few combat units available, that the
enemy was going to attack. Each command was to be ready to
move out on a moment’s notice. Of great concern to the
squadron’s leaders were the eighty TOW missiles, 9,000 rounds
of 20 mm ammunition, and locked milvans loaded with crewserved
weapons, night vision equipment, binoculars, chemical
detection kits, and other valuable equipment that would have
to be left behind if they were forced to move on short notice. Division
headquarters provided no guidance as to what to do
with the ammunition and equipment. So MAJ Burdan, the senior
officer in the area, directed CPT Jack Maloney to cut the
locks on the MILVANs and issue as much of the ammunition,
weapons, and equipment as the soldiers could carry on the vehicles.
Because this was an emergency, they handed out the