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I served as a member of the 1st Infantry Division C BTRY 4/5th FA. I was a #1 man on a M109A4 155MM Howitzer. I figured I would post up my unit.

Welcome B.R.O., glad to see another 1st ID'er.

Welcome. I was next door in HHB 1/5 FA in '94.

FIRE MISSION!

FA1SGret, those words still physically get my blood a pumpin.

Thanks all for the welcome.

As well they should. But I mean it in a good way.

Followed with the gratifying, "SHOT, OVER"

I always said that no one that ever needed arty ever talked smack about arty.

I remember in PLDC right after the war, we had some tank drivers talking sh!t. Saying, "Just give us a grid and we'll go take care of them!" I popped up and said, "I'm 13B, Give us a grid and we'll take care of em from right here..." They all got quiet pretty quickly. The other tanker said, "I get that, 2 things I am scared of, Gas and Artillery..." We made pretty good friends after that.

Yep ... I've had the good fortune of knowing quite a few veterans of different wars ... from WWII on, and the one thing that is pretty common among the combat arms veterans is the appreciation for the Artillery. The most appreciative that I've noticed is a couple of the Korean War vets that I know.

The line unit we supported learned the hard way. They kept rollinf forward while we were tryiong to work up fire missions. The commander said, he wasn't gonna wait, "just don't hit his tanks". So we kept cancelling, and just plotted potential targets as we rolled along. Finally we got held up for a "target-rich environment" and stayed in place for a bit longer than comfortable. We started taking indirect fire and the M-1's started pasing us in reverse while blowing smoke and driving on into the mortar track formations. One of the PLT leaders advised us of some flashes he saw in the horizon. We already had a smoke screen started and shifted another mission towards the enemy fire and got it stopped. That company had just scored the highest record gunnery scores before deploying and were skepticle about having to babysit some F.O.'s But I think we earned a few cool points with the commander, there.

I know this story makes the 1-4 Cav mad, but I figure I would post it here in case anyone from my unit remembers and would want to do a 20 year reunion in Feb.

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD ... tTRDoc.pdf

I did just read the book, "THE ROAD TO SAFWAN" that tried to make a point that the town of Safwan was taken by 1-4 CAV. I believe it was the collective effort of the entire B.R.O. that won that battle. I would have liked to see our story included in the book, seeing it was a HUGE factor in the taking of the town of Safwan. A little change in the title and the book would have appealed to a wider range of interests. Call it, "THE ROAD TO SAFWAN the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry and the Big Red One in the Persian Gulf War." I TOTALLY can relate to most of what was written and can remember most of what happened. This was a GREAT book, and I am HONORED to have served with such brave and honorable men. Just before I read, "A Warriors Rage" and found the 2nd ACR to be worthy of praise as well in leading this war to a speedy end, though I am sure if the Government and Generals would have had it their way, the war would have at least lasted a few months. Which I believe would have been for the greater good. Had that war lasted a few months, the American people would have demanded Sadam’s head and we could not have been happier to serve it and end it then. The big fear then was comparing Desert Storm to Vietnam and trying to end it as soon as possible. This is what we were saying to our commander when they wouldn't give us the order to fire in Safwan and SSG Manigo was disappointed to not exercise his crew. I believe that had we run through those guys at Safwan and took out Sadam and his whole regime, 9/11 probably may NOT have happened as the whole Muslim world would KNOW the same lesson that the Japanese learned at the end of WWII. DO NOT F**K WITH AMERICA, THEY WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND KILL EVERYONE ON THEIR WAY TO KILL YOU!!! War is a VERY ugly thing that MUST be won or lost to the fullest extent, or the lingering effects can take your sons/daughters, brothers/sisters, and fathers/mothers lives. So, here we are WORSE than Vietnam, the longest war in American history.

I remember Safwan well.

ROCK!

Welcome Bart