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

Operations in the TAA 61
preferred 1:100,000 scale. The intelligence officer, CPT Shelby R.
Seelinger, looked everywhere for them, but was unable to find
all the map sheets needed to cover the anticipated area of operations.
Finally, in desperation, Burdan resorted to drawing grid
squares on large sheets of paper that were then trimmed and
fitted to the gaps in the map sheets they did have. Somehow the
vision of the “high-tech” army lost some of its luster as leaders
headed back to their vehicles with their hand-drawn charts,
which lacked any terrain relief. 13
Two hours after midnight on January 17, the 1st Infantry
Division’s duty officer called all of the units on the division’s
command frequency. “ARCENT OPLAN 0001 in effect as of
170145C. Hostilities have commenced.” 14 The squadron’s
watch officer woke MAJ Burdan, who dressed and headed for
the command post. As he walked through the dark and quiet
desert, he could hear the sound of aircraft and see the occasional
strobe lights of those returning from their first missions.
Like other members of the Big Red One, John Burdan was a little
scared at first but was determined not to show it. Strolling
through the command post and assembly area, he saw soldiers
watching the aircraft streak overhead and the tracers and explosions
on the northern horizon. Some were listening to their
shortwave radios to glean what news they could of the attack.
Burdan sensed relief that something had finally happened and
the squadron would not continue to sit in the desert waiting
out the Iraqis. Realizing there was not much he could do, the
operations officer returned to bed around 0300 hours. At 0500
hours, the Division G3, LTC Terry Bullington, called to inform
the squadron that the wartime rules of engagement were in effect.
While this change was minor, it placed soldiers on notice
that they were now in a hostile fire area and they needed to actively
prepare to defend themselves. Later that day, the division
placed the squadron, which now had almost all of the
HHT and B Troop (less its tanks) at Camp Mackenzie, under
1st Brigade’s operational control. 15
MG Rhame visited the squadron area that day at 0900
hours. He wanted to discuss the possible movement of B Troop
west of Hafar Al Batin to provide security for the Division Support
Area Junction City. Upon his arrival, he found that CPT