President Obama will present the Medal Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration for heroism in combat, on June 19 to retired Marine Corps Cpl. William “Kyle” Carpenter, 24, a native of Flowood, Miss., announced the White House on Monday. Obama will recognize Carpenter for his courageous action with the 1st Marine Division (Forward) in Marjah, Afghanistan, on Nov. 21, 2010. Carpenter, then a lance corporal, was severely wounded when he rushed an enemy grenade to shield a fellow marine from the grenade blast during a Taliban attack, according to a May 19 Marine Corps release. He lost his right eye from the blast and sustained multiple shattered bones and a collapsed right lung. He endured two-and-a-half years recovering in a military hospital; doctors had to rebuild much of his jaw. Carpenter, medically retired from the Marine Corps in July 2013. He will become the eighth living recipient of the Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan or Iraq, following former Army Sgt. Kyle White, whom Obama awarded the medal on May 13.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Sept. 5 to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, a move that has heightened the ongoing debate over the White House’s legal authorities and the role of the military in the world and at home.
