Posted on 05/19/2014 3:46:23 PM PDT by mandaladon
Cpl. William Kyle Carpenter doesn’t remember much about the day he and a fellow Marine were caught in the blast of a hand grenade in southern Afghanistan while manning a rooftop security post. There was almost no time to react before the explosion tore into him in a searing, angry ball of white light.
Carpenter recalls that he “got right with God” as he was enveloped by the sensation of warm water pouring all over him. It was his own blood. “My last few seconds before I lost consciousness,” he said, “I had accepted the fact that ... I was not going to survive and make it off that rooftop.”
Remarkably, Carpenter did survive, despite horrific wounds. Just as remarkable is how he sustained them — by throwing himself on the grenade in an attempt to save his friend and fellow Marine, Lance Cpl. Nick Eufrazio, from harm.
On Monday, the White House announced that it would award Carpenter, 24, with the Medal of Honor for his actions, making him just the second living Marine to receive the nation’s highest award for valor in combat since the Vietnam War. Fourteen other U.S. service members have received the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. Carpenter’s bravery on Nov. 21, 2010, has been celebrated for years by fellow Marines, but it was never clear that he would receive the Medal of Honor. Pentagon rules require “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” for the award – tricky, given the circumstances of Carpenter’s case.
The infantryman, then a lance corporal, has never been able to recall what happened in the moments immediately before the explosion. The only other eyewitness to what happened, Eufrazio, of Plymouth, Mass., sustained brain damage that prevented him from speaking.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Agreed
Oo-rah!
Courage so extreme we can only shed tears of awe before it.
Where are the posters claiming that, if they were the Marine in question, they would NEVER agree to receive a MOH awarded by Obama. Has this regular band of armchair warriors showed up yet?
Congratulations to a fine Marine.
Bravo Zulu
Active Duty ping.
Absolutely.
I totally agree, shame is that mac daddy has to be the one to be photo-oped awarding it to him with hands that one wonders where they have been and what they were doing.
Maybe it would be better if mac daddy wore medical gloves.
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