Cpl, USMC — War on Terror
William Kyle Carpenter was born on October 17, 1989, in Jackson, Mississippi, and raised in Flowood. He graduated from W. Wyman King Academy in Batesburg, South Carolina, and entered the Marine Corps’ delayed entry program at age nineteen in February 2009. After completing recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in July 2009 and infantry training at Camp Geiger, North Carolina, he was assigned to Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, as a squad automatic weapon gunner. In July 2010 he deployed to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
On the morning of November 21, 2010, Lance Corporal Carpenter and Lance Corporal Nicholas Eufrazio were manning a rooftop security position on the perimeter of Patrol Base Dakota, a small outpost established just two days earlier in the Marjah District, when Taliban fighters initiated a daylight attack with hand grenades. One grenade landed inside their sandbagged position. Without hesitation, Carpenter moved toward the grenade in an attempt to shield his fellow Marine from the blast. When it detonated, his body absorbed the brunt of the explosion — saving Eufrazio’s life while leaving Carpenter catastrophically wounded.
His injuries were so severe that a nearby medical team labeled him “Expired on Arrival,” but he survived. Unconscious for five weeks, he spent nearly three years recovering at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He lost his right eye and most of his teeth, suffered a shattered jaw, a punctured lung, and thirty fractures to his right arm, and endured roughly forty surgeries. He was medically retired from the Marine Corps as a corporal in July 2013. On June 19, 2014, President Barack Obama presented him with the Medal of Honor at the White House, making Carpenter the youngest living recipient of the award.
Carpenter went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina and published his autobiography, “You Are Worth It: Building a Life Worth Fighting For,” in 2019. He is a public speaker and podcast host who talks about leadership, adversity, and finding purpose. In January 2025, the Secretary of the Navy announced that an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer will bear his name — USS Kyle Carpenter.
Sources: Wikipedia · Congressional Medal of Honor Society