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From: Bill Pecknold
Date: 3/11/2003
Time: 5:56:50 PM
Remote Name: 65.203.60.198
I was on the flight line the morning of Jan 27th 1973. We were up most of the night taking the gun mounts off of the helicopters and painting half of them with orange stripes and the other half with ICCS in black letters with a white back ground. My helicopter tail number was 797 at the time. That morning the cease fire was to go into effect at 8am. AT 8am sharp charley hit us with a rocket. Some helicopters were running up some were taking off. It really took us by surprise since the U.S. was no longer engaged in the conflict. My mission that morning was to pick up a Colonel and fly him to siagon. We made the pick-up and were flying low due to the fact that artilery was going off everywhere and we had no idea who's it was and where it was coming from. We were now heading to Siagon and heard it was getting hit. We then headed back to drop the Colonel off and fly back to my Unit. One of our pilots a 19 year old from Bakersfield CA was killed when he was struck by a bullet through the chin bubble. All missions were cancelled by 9:30am. I was called into the orderly room and told that I was to escort the deceased pilot back to California because I also was from California. I started packing and shortly after was called back into the orderly room and told that I was staying back because I was now classified mission essential. I was to fly with the peace keeping team. The ICCS stood for "International Commision and Control Supervision". I stayed and flew with the peace keeping team until around April 15th 1973. We were awarded an ICCS plaque for our efforts. I also took a ICCS flag from a jeep's antenna and had the pilots and crew chiefs sign it and yes I still have them both along with some pictures of my helicopter with ICCS on it and a picture of one of our choppers with orange stripes and with the peace keeping team in the foreground.