Gen. Joe Dunford, the new commandant of the Marine Corps, is featured in a video message celebrating the service’s 239th birthday. Dunford issued the message celebrating Marines’ Nov. 10 birthday the day after a passage of command ceremony during which he became the Corps’ 36th commandant. This year’s message includes interviews with Marines from some of the Corps’ most brutal battles, from Pfc. John Lahm, who fought in the Battle of Peleliu during World War II, to Sgt. Maj. Bradley Kasal, who earned a Navy Cross for his role in the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. The Corps’ newest Medal of…
Browsing: Kyle Carpenter
Medal of Honor recipient and current University of South Carolina sophomore Kyle Carpenter led the traditional “Game! … Cocks!” cheer prior to last night’s season opener against Texas A&M. The Afghanistan vet had said prior to the game that he was nervous to get in front of the crowd of 80,000, but as you can see below, his execution and showmanship were on point. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD3gQNTLtbo[/youtube] Carpenter’s performance might have been the highlight of the evening for Gamecock fans, as their 9th-ranked squad was beaten 52-28 by the 21st-ranked Aggies.
It was Nov. 21, 2010, when Lance Cpls. Kyle Carpenter and Nick Eufrazio were rocked with a grenade blast that changed both of their lives. Nineteen months later, Carpenter’s miraculous recovery continues. Profiled in a Marine Corps Times cover story I wrote late last year, he has continued to heal slowly from life threatening injuries. The blast mangled his jaw, destroyed one of his eyes and most of his teeth and caused severe trauma to his right arm, which had severe tissue damage and more than 30 fractures. Carpenter has been strikingly open about his recovery since, launching a Facebook…
In January, Marine Corps Times profiled Lance Cpl. Kyle Carpenter. The wounded warrior has undergone more than 30 surgeries since sustaining catastrophic injuries in a November 2010 grenade blast near Marjah, Afghanistan, but maintains a strikingly cheerful outlook on life. Most of the quotes in that story from Carpenter came from an interview I did with him at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He was refreshingly candid about his struggles — and that he had a number of goals left to meet. One of those goals was doing pull-ups again, even after his right arm…
It’s rare indeed that Marine Corps Times will publish back-to-back cover stories on the same subject. Lance Cpl. William Kyle Carpenter’s story is exceptional, though. As I reported last week, the Marine Corps is investigating what happened in the moments before he and Lance Cpl. Nick Eufrazio were hit with grenade explosion in a guard post near Marjah, Afghanistan, on Nov. 21, 2010. Carpenter took the brunt of the blast, and the service is researching whether he deliberately attempted to protect Eufrazio. The story prompted a strong response from our readers — and for several of Carpenter’s fellow Marines present…
As mentioned on this blog yesterday, this week’s Marine Corps Times cover story focuses on Lance Cpl. Kyle Carpenter, the Marine infantryman who has achieved a miraculous recovery after sustaining a grenade blast near Marjah, Afghanistan, in November 2010. Marine Corps Times has taken some heat for reporting that there are questions over whether Carpenter covered the grenade to protect his buddy, Lance Cpl. Nick Eufrazio. Actions along those lines have yielded prestigious valor awards in the past, obviously. Those questions exist, though, at least in the minds of some in the Corps. Additional Marine sources have reaffirmed that since…
UPDATE: An updated version of this story has now been posted online here. You may recognize this face. That’s Lance Cpl. Kyle Carpenter, who was severely wounded in Afghanistan in 2010 when insurgents chucked a hand grenade onto the roof where he and another Marine, Lance Cpl. Nick Eufrazio, were posting security. In the months since the attack, as Carpenter has undergone numerous surgeries to address his injuries, he has become an ambassador, of sorts, for the Marine Corps and its wounded warriors, inspiring family, friends and fellow Marines with his undying optimism in the face of a difficult recovery.…
