Sergeant Clayton Pickle, a graduate of Canton Academy and a member of the Mississippi Army National Guard, recently received the Meritorious Service Medal recognizing his role in the safe recovery of a downed pilot during his work in Hurricane Katrina recovery last September.
Pickle, 23, who said he received the medal earlier this year but was not actually able to retrieve it until about two weeks ago, is crew chief on a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and has been in the National Guard since he was 17 years old.
He is also a graduate of Holmes Community College and is currently attending Mississippi State University.
He received the medal along with CW-4 (Chief Warrant Officer) Gerald Manieri, 1st Lieutenant Langston Sylvian, and Sergeant Edwin Mack. All four men are in Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, of the 185th Aviation Unit.
Pickle downplayed the personal aspect of the medal, saying that he was simply doing his duty and that anyone else in his position would have done the same thing.
"It made me feel real good. It hit home real hard, being in aviation, because aviation is such a small community. That could have been any of us," he said.
The rescue took place in the middle of September, when Pickle and his Black Hawk crew were in the middle of delivering badly needed supplies to Gulf Coast residents. Pickle said that he had just finished up flying Marsha Barbour to various points in the Katrina-affected areas and had left her in Gulfport.
On their flight between Gulfport and Jackson, Pickle and his crew received a call that a civilian Cesna aircraft coming out of Pascagoula had crashed and required immediate assistance.
When they arrived, they found a fixed-wing aircraft already circling over the crash site. But Pickle and his crew landed and were able to remove the pilot from the plane and provide preliminary medical assistance to the pilot until emergency medical personnel arrived.
"We were on the ground roughly two minutes before emergency personnel arrived. We held his head, and disconnected the (plane's) battery to prevent an explosion," he said.
As he left the crash site, Pickle said, he realized that all of his years of training in the National Guard had prepared him for moments exactly like those.
"I used so much of my training during the hurricane time," he said.
Lieutenant Commander Dane W. Powell, Pickle's battalion commander who recommended Pickle for the award, wrote in his recommendation: "Your actions bring credit upon yourself, your unit, and the Mississippi Army National Guard."
Pickle said that he initially wanted to join the National Guard because he wanted to fly helicopters, and that he still loves aviation and being in the military.
"I love aviation. I couldn't ask for a better unit. We work as a team," he said.
He noted that his unit is currently eligible for service in Iraq, although he doesn't allow the possibility to occupy his thoughts or divert his attention from his current tasks in the National Guard
"I really don't think about it. When my unit is called ... I'll go, and I'll do my job. That's part of being a soldier," he said.
