Sean’s Jawa Motorcycle, or The Night I Jumped in a Ditch

April 28, 2004 my sister section of CAAT got into a heavy firefight at the train station on the North edge of Fallujah, near Phase Line Henry:

I will back up a moment for the sake of clarity. Weapons company was made up of two entities, 81s platoon which were the 81 millimeter mortar guys who provided the Battalions’s heavy organic indirect fires, and 2 CAAT platoons. Every deployment I went on with 2/1 the CAAT element of Weapons Company was structured differently. In 2001 we were divided into Anti-Armor Platoon (in M151 jeeps and later in G-Wagons that could be loaded internally into helicopters) and Counter Mech platoon in heavier Humvees. In 2003 we sent all of our G-Wagons over to Golf company (the battalion helicopter company) and CAAT was made up solely of Humvees. In 2004 we got the G-Wagons back from G Co, and integrated them in with the Humvees into two equally sized homogenized platoons of two sections each. So 1st platoon was commanded by Lt. Scott and had two section leaders, SSgt H had ‘Offspring’ and SSgt V had ‘Roadtest’. 2nd platoon was commanded by Lt. D and had two section leaders, SSgt G had ‘Pennywise’ and Sgt T (me) was in charge of ‘Pilsner’.

during the course of the deployment we started with the G-Wagons, one to each section plus 4 humvees, but with my section being G-Wagon heavy with 3 G-Wagons plus 3 humvees (I had the biggest section)Here are some pictures of the different vehicles:

G-Wagons

Up Armored Humvee

So, back to the story. Offspring got into a heavy firefight at the train station. Pilsner (my guys) went and reinforced them during the fight. Offspring ended up taking off to refit and get some rest and we took over the train station post, sitting in defensive positions watching the North edge of the city and down Phase Line Henry. While we were there an old woman who lived in the train station fed some intel to Lt. D about insurgent activity in the area. Sometime right before midnight Roadtest and Pennywise relieved us and we went back to get some sleep.

Sometime the next day after our guys had withdrawn from the train station, two insurgent enforcers beat the woman severely enough that she had to be air medevaced to a hospital in Baghdad or Camp Fallujah.

We were briefed the following evening, April 30th that the woman had been attacked by two insurgents in their 20’s with a baseball bat who rode a red Jawa motorcycle around at night and visited locals who were suspected of helping coalition forces. It just so happened that very night we located the red Jawa motorcycle and the two enforcers…

We were on our normal patrol securing MSR Mobile for coalition traffic when one of the gunners spotted the red Jawa north of us in a rural farming area. It was fairly easy to pick out because it was acting VERY oddly. It was dark, maybe around midnight, and we would see a single headlight come on for a few seconds, slow down and then vanish. A few moments later we would see the headlight moving quickly again, slow down and then vanish. It turned out later that whenever you hit the gas on the bike the headlight would short circuit and go out and would only turn on again when coasting. That is likely the only reason we were eventually able to catch up to it.

At any rate we went after the bike. We started out blacked out, no headlights and running only on Night Vision Goggles (NVGs). We hadn’t figured out yet that the motorcycle was crippled. So I figured the best way to catch it was to try and sneak up on it…in a humvee. It worked for a while, we followed it as it crisscrossed the dikes above the farm canals slowly making gains. Eventually the bike noticed us and began to ride more frantically, it was then that my gunner figured out that the bike’s light was malfunctioning. We went full lights on and my driver Danny C hit the gas. Danny should have been a race car driver, or a stunt driver – he was awesome as we raced along very narrow raised dike roads in the dark chasing that Jawa. We were still gaining on it, as it turned on to a long straight stretch I knew we had it. There was no where for it to go. I told Danny to floor it, and we were gonna pass the motorcycle. As we started to pass it I told Danny “hit the brake when I tell you, don’t wreck us though”. We passed the Jawa, he was on my side. I kicked the door open and yelled “Brake”!

—Here is the picture of my humvee again. I was in the front passenger door, it is reinforced ballistic steel, double layered with a four inch thick ballistic plexiglass window. It probably weighs 300 pounds.

I kicked that 300 pound door open directly in front of the Jawa. They hit it and went into the canal ditch. So did I. I jumped out while the vehicle was still hammering to a stop, and landed right on top of both enforcers and the bike. One of them punched my kevlar helmet, the other one was being shoved facedown in the muddy gunk by my knee. The first one was small, maybe 5’4″ and scrawny. I weighed close to 200 pounds with all my gear on. He was losing quickly. Then another Marine showed up, and another, and then more. We drug them up the embankment, searched them, and tied them up and blindfolded them. threw one in the back of my humvee, the other in another humvee.

Ray L asked “What about the bike?”. I could care less about the bike, but the guys wanted it. Who would I be to deny them of their trophy?

“Who can run this thing?” I asked.

A couple of hands went up. I looked at the hands that were up, Sean O, one of my cool and calm, common sense mid western farm boy Corporals had a hand up and a grin on his face. Sean got to ride the motorcycle back to Baharia with the convoy. I am sure if anyone saw us, it was a strange sight. Six heavily armored gun trucks with a single Corporal of Marines riding a beat up old Jawa motorcycle in the middle.

We dropped the two prisoner off with our local HET (Human Intelligence Exploitation Team) folks, never heard from them or about them again. The motorcycle stayed around for a day, and was taken away by Battalion (probably a good idea, but it sucked at the time). But we had fun, and Sean got to ride a red motorcycle across the most dangerous part of Iraq in the middle of the night. It was a good night.

Ryan