Marine to receive Medal of Honor for Afghan heroism

• Carpenter was medically retired because of his wounds
• Medal of Honor investigation complicated by fact no one witnessed what took place
• Carpenter has been featured at Marine Corps events

A former Marine who was severely wounded during a 2010 grenade attack in Afghanistan will receive the Medal of Honor later this year, Marine Corps Times has learned.

William Kyle Carpenter, 24, a medically retired corporal, will become the service's third Medal of Honor recipient of the nation's highest combat valor award from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which date to October 2001. The Marine Corps is finalizing plans with the White House for a ceremony in Washington, officials said.

Marine Corps Times inquired about the status of Carpenter's case because the statute of limitations for Department of the Navy Medal of Honor awards requires that a formal recommendation be made within three years of the combat action in question.

Carpenter, whose story has been featured by Marine Corps Times and Reader's Digest and who appeared on Katie Couric's syndicated talk show in January, declined to comment on reports that he would soon receive the Medal of Honor.

A Marine Corps spokesman referred all requests for comment to the White House. A White House spokesman said he had no scheduling announcements to make regarding the award. However, Medal of Honor presentations are typically announced only a month in advance.

Carpenter's Medal of Honor nomination stems from reports that, as a 21-year-old lance corporal, he intentionally covered a grenade to save the life of his friend, Lance Cpl. Nicholas Eufrazio, on Nov. 21, 2010, as the two Marines were standing guard on a rooftop in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Both men survived the blast but were badly wounded. Carpenter lost his right eye and most of his teeth. His jaw was shattered and his arm was broken in dozens of places.

Eufrazio sustained damage to the frontal lobe of his brain from shrapnel. Until recently, his wounds rendered him unable to speak.

The Marine Corps' investigation into events surrounding the grenade blast has been complicated by circumstances. First, no one witnessed what took place after the grenade was thrown. Second, Carpenter said he couldn't remember what happened due to trauma from the blast. Third, Eufrazio has been on a long and intensive road to recovery from his wounds. He only regained his ability to speak in late 2012.

Still, troops who served with Carpenter on the deployment say there's no doubt in their minds that he absorbed the grenade blast to save his comrade.

Marine Staff Sgt. Michael Kroll, Carpenter's platoon sergeant, told Marine Corps Times that even though nobody knew for sure what happened, "our feeling has always been that Kyle shielded Nick from that blast."

Hospitalman 3rd Class Christopher Frend, who triaged the Marines' wounds, said the injuries Carpenter sustained, and the evidence at the scene indicated that he had indeed covered the explosive. The blast seat of the grenade — the point of its detonation — was found under Carpenter's torso.

"Grenade blasts blow up; they don't blow down," Frend told Marine Corps Times in 2012. "If he hadn't done it, what we found would have looked completely different."

While the Marine Corps continued its investigation, Carpenter attained a level of celebrity as a Marine hero. More than 13,000 people have followed his recovery and his projects following retirement via the Facebook page Operation Kyle.

In 2011, the state Senate in Carpenter's native South Carolina honored him with a resolution that gave him credit for taking the grenade blast, saying he exemplified a hero. A photograph from the Senate ceremony, showing Carpenter proud in his dress blues with shrapnel scars creating veins of silver across his face, went viral online.

Carpenter has maintained close ties with the Marine Corps and has been featured as a guest of honor at several command events. In November, he posted a photo on his Facebook page that shows him alongside Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Jim Amos, Marine Sgt. Maj. Mike Barrett and Dakota Meyer, who in 2011 became the first Marine Medal of Honor recipient out of the war in Afghanistan.

The Corps' only other post-9/11 Medal of Honor recipient, Cpl. Jason Dunham, was recognized posthumously for smothering a grenade in Iraq in 2004.