Marine Corps veteran Kyle Carpenter will be awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during a November 2010 grenade attack in Afghanistan.
Unnamed officials have told the Marine Corps Times the announcement from the White House announcing Carpenter's award is imminent, although the White House has yet to confirm this.
Carpenter's heroic actions took place on Nov. 21, 2010, when he covered a live grenade with his body to protect his fellow Marine and close friend, Lance Cpl. Nicholas Eufrazio.
The blast cost Carpenter his right eye and almost all of his teeth. The bones in his jaw and one of his arms were shattered. Eufrazio also survived, but suffered severe brain damage:
Hospitalman 3rd Class Christopher Frend, who triaged the injuries of Carpenter and Eufrazio, 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.”
