CMOH recipient Kyle Carpenter

our first guest is the only only the second living marine since Vietnam to receive the medal of honor our nation's highest award for valor ladies and gentlemen please welcome corporal Kyle carpenter how are you doing physically you okay you look great thank you yeah no I'm doing great in the gym everyday I'm a student University of South Carolina you studying going into my sophomore year and I think I'm gonna declare psychology mm-hmm with everything I've been through and I took a class this past year which is my freshman year I really enjoyed it really interesting he said and and were you in class in school there when you receive the call who calls you to announce that you are the new recipient well about a week ahead of time I got the exact day and time that the president would call me so I got out of class I drove home about 30 minutes my parents checked my brother's out of school we are at we were all there in the living room to share that important special moment in my life and we hung up and I went back to class move back to plan yeah I'm sorry I'm late professor I just got a call from the president that's saying it was easy to focus yes now it because I don't know how this works tell me did you know ahead of time other than the the call arranging the call that this was a likelihood for you well there definitely has to be some calls for preparation purposes and they did they sort of come in a few months before started out not so official just checking on me seeing how things were going where I was at in life and then they kind of progressed to that that point that point yeah and since you've received the award what has been the reaction from your friends at college your family and their friends and so forth I mean not just since I received the award since the moment I was injured the love and support appreciation and just the positive backing that I've had I just can't say enough about and really that just carried over since getting the award but my community in my school and the students and just really since being injured the letters that poured in from all over the nation it's just it's been really incredible had spent four months at the patrol base that entire time at the same spot and we had got a mission to push south where there was no Marines and it was a strong I guess an enemy stronghold mm-hmm we got a mission to push down we knew it was going to be a bad fight we knew we were probably going to take casualties but it was necessary to push that marine presence out further furthermore helping local populations and trying to rid the that I guess that territory of the enemy now when you get that order what does that do to you inside are you ready to go are you thinking oh damn we got to go do this or is it all training is it adrenaline what happens when you realize okay we're moving we have an objective and we're going to go after it we notice what we were over there for it's what we signed up for you're right it had become part of daily life our squad drew the short straw so huh you know we headed down there and uh you know shortly after moving in the first grenade attack came yeah tell us where you were when you were injured and the circumstances about that myself a fellow marine best friend we were on top of a roof and we were what's called we were on post which is I guess in civilian terms like a lookout position to protect the Marines inside the mud compound because really there's no roofs over there so we were on top of the little tiny roof that they used to sleep in and the grenade attack came I don't remember any of the moments leading up to it I know help me out here in the movies we see grenades being thrown were these being thrown or were they being launched they were being thrown right into the compound by enemy fighters so I think the enemy is fairly close very much yeah and how many Marines are then you looking up for the welfare I would say we only went down there with about 12 12 okay go ahead and so I don't the only thing I remember for that entire day is the sound of small arms fire ak-47 their primary a weapon that morning which is kind of like our alarm clock on a regular basis and then the only thing I remember after that is physically how my body felt after I was hit by the grenade you're hit when you're up on the roof you're in that position with two other Marines and just one just one other marine okay so okay so you know something has happened to your body and your perception is obviously very strange at that moment it was I was confused because the last thing I remembered I was on top of a roof and I didn't know if I was had been patrolling a stepped on ie D and that's just the last thing I could remember after when I got hit my vision was almost like if a TV didn't have cable and it was just white and gray static my ears are ringing very loud I couldn't hear anything because my ruptured eardrums the next thing I felt was warm water felt like warm waters being poured all over me from the blood balls you're 22 years old when this happens 21 21 yes sir and the reason you suffered these massive injuries is because what did you do you put yourself between your buddy and a grenade you fell on the grenade what was the actual action on your part from eyewitness accounts of forensic evidence and a post blast analysis I showed it and covered the grenade for my fellow marine Oh this is fascinating because this is nearly a textbook case of combat is this because of Kyle carpenter or is this because of Kyle carpenter the marine well you know for the second we step on the yellow footprints at boot camp it says still to us that there's a bigger purpose that the uniform we wear has a rich history and legacy Marines that have been heroic before us to take care of our junior Marines and that when we get in those bad parts of the world that nobody wants to go to the Marines that are right and left is all we have so I would like to say as me I like to think it was a little bit me but absolutely the Marine Corps and our history and just everything we stand for makes us want to to be courageous and do those things well god bless you I'm going to now if it's all right with you I'm gonna run down the list of injuries you incurred is that okay yes they're comfortable with that I'm not hiding it from anybody yeah okay countless shattered bones throughout the body countless more than a dozen something like that 30 in this arm 30 in one arm I'm an overachiever shrapnel in both legs shrapnel in both legs carotid artery and neck punctured punctured ladies and gentlemen both eardrums ruptured lost most of his teeth arm broken in more than 30 places collapsed right lung lost most of your jaw is that is that true yes sir lost most of your jaw well the Oh most three years I spent in the hospital much of that time and most of my around 40 surgeries was a facial pretty much everything from the eyes down is uh plates and reconstructive surgeries and fun stuff like that you look wonderful thank you that's all I would like to take this opportunity to absolutely credit Walter Reed in the military medicine and the staff there lost the vision in his right eye there was brain surgery to remove shrapnel and he had a fractured skull and now like this other stuff is not enough you flatlined three times in fact at the scene they thought you were dead didn't they yes sir well when I arrived at Camp Bastion which was the first combat trauma hospital out of four that I went through I was labeled peña which I guess is politically correct way it stands for patient expired on arrival but I was now uh what was your first moment of cognition half after this trauma how long after the trauma and what was it about five weeks later I woke up and the first thing I saw was my mom had decorated my room to fit the Christmas holiday and I saw a stocking for every single one of my family members hung on my Hospital wall in front of my bed well I I don't know what to say I I wish you nothing but the best in life thank you so much thank you for your sacrifice and as a parent I hope to God my son does not ever have to go through what you have gone through but in some way I hope he is able to manifest the same courage thank you so much it's a great honor to meet you thank you sir corporal Kyle carpenter ladies and gentlemen your Medal of Honor recipient

Channel: talonev

Views: 2,744,429

Rating: 4.931891 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: VJJ1TXBY62c

Length: 11min 9sec (669 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 27 2014