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

Combat Command Carter 85
spective, the LRSD teams had no communications with the units
on the line behind them. Finally, because they were within observation
range of armored vehicle thermal sights and ground
surveillance radar, Combat Command Carter’s ground outposts
often picked up their activity at night. 8
Almost immediately, this poorly conceived arrangement
created serious problems. For example, one night a troop observation
post reported that it had detected a small patrol to its
front. A check of the LRSD positions posted in the tactical command
post indicated that if it was an Iraqi patrol in the area, the
two groups were near each other. The distance between the
screen line and the LRSD team was far enough to make it difficult
to determine what was going on, and without radio communications,
it could not contact the reconnaissance team.
Rather than risk losing this team, the command ordered B
Troop to send out a mounted unit and determine the situation.
As it turned out, contrary to doctrine and procedures, the team
had left its positions and was moving around, not realizing that
in the darkness they were being observed. Of course, once the
troop’s vehicles arrived and compromised the LRSD’s location,
it was necessary to extract them. Problems with the division’s
reconnaissance teams continued until they were withdrawn at
the end of the border surveillance mission on February 14. 9
Another frustrating aspect of border operations during this
time was the difficulty in getting permission to engage the enemy.
Squadron scout weapons teams, backed up as needed by
Apache attack helicopters from the Aviation Brigade, routinely
flew across the sector to examine areas where the ground scouts
could not or were not permitted to go. Like the Bradley crews,
they were anxious and ready for action. For example, at 1500
hours on February 4, a combined C/D Troop scout weapons
team under CPT Jim Tovsen flying a patrol along the screen line
reported a possible Iraqi Panhard AML light armored vehicle
armed with a 90-mm gun along the border berm and asked for
permission to engage it. The squadron command post then
asked CC Carter’s command post, which then had to ask the
VII Corps command post, taking about twenty-five minutes before
receiving approval. Just before WO1s Gary Notestine and
Thomas Copeland had to break contact and return their Cobra