The Navy will name a new Arleigh Burke-class destroyer after Marine Cpl. Kyle Carpenter, a Medal of Honor recipient who shielded a fellow Marine from a grenade blast in Afghanistan, Navy Secretary John Phelan announced Monday.
It gives me great pleasure to award @GDBIW the contract to produce the next Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, USS Kyle Carpenter (DDG-148).
In 2010, Cpl. Carpenter went above and beyond the call of duty to shield a fellow Marine from a grenade blast in Afghanistan. May this… pic.twitter.com/6WCT5NKHCn
— Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan (@SECNAV) August 4, 2025
“Cpl. Carpenter went above and beyond the call of duty to shield a fellow Marine from a grenade blast in Afghanistan,” Phelan wrote on X. “May this warship represent his valor, resilience and devotion to our nation.”
On November 21, 2010, then-21-year-old Carpenter was manning a rooftop post in Afghanistan’s Marjah District when a grenade landed near him and Lance Cpl. Nick Eufrazio.
He threw himself onto the grenade, saving Eufrazio’s life. As a result, Carpenter suffered extensive injuries, including multiple fractures, the loss of his right eye, and major damage to his jaw. He spent five weeks in a coma and underwent years of recovery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Carpenter received the Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama on June 19, 2014. The citation credited his “undaunted courage” and “unwavering devotion to duty in the face of almost certain death.”
Now a veterans advocate and speaker, Carpenter has said his sacrifice reflected his commitment to the mission.
“I felt like I had accomplished what I had set out to do,” Carpenter said in a 2021 interview with Task & Purpose. “Maybe I had only been in a year and a half, but bleeding for my country the way I did, I felt like I had contributed, and done my part, not only for the Marine Corps, but for our country, and to try to help people around the world.”
In recent years, the Navy has started naming ships in honor of service members who served in the Global War on Terrorism, including the USS Helmand Province and USS Fallujah.
The U.S. Navy has not disclosed when the USS Kyle Carpenter will be commissioned.
