A biography for Kyle Carpenterhasn’t been written yet.
“My college experience was like everyone else's. I learned a lot. I gained a new perspective on the world and on people that I'm so thankful and appreciative for.”
“Be kind and help others. Let the ones you love know you love them.”
“Just because I'm in the spotlight - I'm actually no better than anyone else. Everyone has hard days and tough times.”
“I graduated from college December of 2017 and looking ahead and thinking about potentially starting a book, I just kept getting hung up before even starting because I didn't want to write a book that only people that have served in the military or that have been to combat could understand.”
“Going from toting a machine gun in Afghanistan... to using a bed pan, and I can't even put my own socks on - that was hard to kind of suck it up.”
“There was always the next therapy appointment, next surgery, next college exam, but with time and deep thought, those evolved into life lessons, which then evolved into perspective.”
“Everyone can relate to struggle.”
“I want to show people no matter what they go through there's a light at the end of the tunnel.”
“The blast blew most of my teeth out, I have screws and plates in my face, I lost the eye.”
“I was injured by an enemy hand grenade in Afghanistan in 2010. I spent three years recovering at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center... And through that three years, I was forced to search for the silver linings during the long dark and painful nights and days in the hospital.”
“I'm still here and kicking and, you know, I have all my limbs so you'll never hear me complain.”
“The hardest part of my entire three-year recovery has been knowing that my parents, my brothers, were suffering through this burden of injury and recovery, something I volunteered for that they didn't ask for.”
“As the president put the Medal of Honor around my neck, I felt the history and the weight of a nation.”
“I feel people look up to me.”
“There were a lot of hard times, and having to have a team of people help me out of the bed, having to use a bedpan is a really tough thing to swallow. But looking back, I'm proud of my scars and what myself and my Marines went through in Marjah.”
“I was first and foremost a fellow Gamecock and friend before a Medal of Honor recipient.”
“What I was really into as a kid, anything that drove my mother crazy or made her nervous, and not much has changed.”
“I remember my buddies yelling at me, and it sounded like they were a football field away, and I remember them yelling, 'You're gonna make it, you're gonna make it!' I just kept trying to tell them that I was going to die.”
“Freedom is a powerful and beautiful thing.”
“I ran a marathon, completed a mud run and jumped from a plane.”