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Chapter 1: What moment led Kyle Carpenter to receive the Medal of Honor?
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Chapter 2: How did Kyle Carpenter describe the split-second decision to jump on the grenade?
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Wayfair. Every style. Every home. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Okay, so I gave a talk in Austin, I guess this was back in September, maybe October. And
And I'd had kind of a crazy day in Austin, and I'd come straight from the podcast studio, and I told this story. We know physical courage, I think, when we see it, right? Physical courage is Kyle Carpenter, who I interviewed today. He won the Medal of Honor. He was on a rooftop in Afghanistan. A grenade comes in, and in a split second, he throws himself on top of it.
He absorbs the majority of the blacks. He saves the life of his buddy, and... quite rarely loses his own. He wins the Medal of Honor for this. But it's that flash, that moment when you do the incredible thing. He and I talked about someone that I'm writing about in my next book.
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Chapter 3: What was the aftermath of the grenade incident for Kyle Carpenter?
It's a man named Tom Hudner. Tom Hudner is flying to Korea in the early days of the Korean War. He's a wingman to a guy named Jesse Brown, the first black naval pilot. And Brown takes a bit of flak and goes down the snowy field near the Chosin Reservoir. And in an instant, Hudner, circling above, sees that his friend isn't leaving the plane.
The canopy is up, but he's still in the plane and he's waving. And without a thought, he crashes his own plane next to it. in the hope of pulling him from the wreckage. It's unsuccessful. Brown is hopelessly stuck, and his last words to Hudner are, tell my wife Daisy I love her. And when Hudner returns to his ship that he has to rescue by a helicopter,
He's not only beating himself up for not having successfully rescued him, but believes he's going to be court-martialed. The policy was you leave a downed pilot because they couldn't afford to lose two pilots for everyone to crash. It's these moments of incredible selflessness when one puts their own interests behind someone else's interests. That's obviously like transcendent
Obviously, I couldn't interview Tom Hudner. He's no longer with us. As I said, I had interviewed Kyle Carpenter that day. And I was fascinated by this decision that Kyle had made in a split second, a decision most of us can't imagine. And then I was even more interested in the journey that came after. So this is me talking to Kyle. You can follow him on Instagram at chicks dig scars.
That's chick just with a K C H I K S dig scars. And you can grab signed copies of his memoir. You are worth it at the painted porch. I just heard this stat that shocked me, given that I hear from the sales staff at my publisher quite a bit. The stat is sales teams spend about 50% of their time on admin work instead of selling, relationship building, closing deals.
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So generally, I get to wear whatever I want, which is usually, if you see me, it's running shorts and a heavy metal t-shirt, but you know, sometimes we have a fancy guest on, I wanna dress up or I'm giving a talk and I've gotta dress up or I'm gonna be on TV and I gotta dress up.
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Chapter 4: What insights does Kyle share about courage and selflessness?
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That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com for free shipping and 365-day returns. Do you know the story of Tom Hutner? Do you know who that is? He won the Medal of Honor in Korea. I just spent the past two days with him.
Or not him, his son. No way. Tom Hutner. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. He is an exceptional individual, just like, you know, his father and...
Was his son in the service too? Or what does his son do?
No, he was not. But yeah, two very successful sons. And now he helps with Medal of Honor related endeavors and just helping us in our mission. Really?
Yeah. I just read this book about him, and I saw that the picture was taken by Tom Hudner Jr., and I was like, oh, so I didn't know the son existed. But I'm fascinated by the story. It's in the book that I'm doing now. How crazy. Yeah, so for people who don't know, he's a pilot in Korea. Correct. And he's a wingman to Jesse Brown, who's the first black pilot in the Navy.
And Brown takes a shot to his oil tank, has to crash in this field in the Chosin Reservoir. And then as they're circling, he sees that he doesn't get out of the plane because you couldn't eject. They're too low.
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Chapter 5: How does Kyle Carpenter reflect on his recovery journey?
And this is the crazy thing. So right before they took off, the skipper of the ship goes, if anyone goes down... He's like, I'll court-martial anyone who tries to rescue them. Because he's like, we can't afford to lose two planes and two pilots. Right. He's like, wait for a helicopter. We will send a helicopter. I don't want anyone trying to rescue anyone. And then Hudner sees his friend go down.
and immediately disregards the orders and crashes his plane in this snowy field in the Chosin Reservoir and attempts to rescue Brown from the plane who's like hopelessly stuck in there. And Brown's last words are, you know, tell my wife I love her. I wanted to ask you about it because I'm fascinated with this story, like that decision to do the craziest thing that a person could do.
you're one of the handful of people who might have some insight into that thought process.
What a small world and how unbelievable that this is the first topic that's brought up. I have so many questions about this now. And I just spent two days with him. But, you know, obviously it was a split second decision out of love for his friend and fellow service member.
But as I've examined just, you know, for me personally, my my journey in those five seconds on the roof, I feel like just like a championship on the football field or getting an A on a test. Very few things can be executed in the moment that they are without planning or thought or preparation before. And so I feel like although the entire world only examines those five seconds on the roof. Sure.
You know, I feel that, you know, one, I was just as a recipient and all of my fellow recipients will say we just happened to be in that moment, in that time and place. And we had the opportunity to step up the way we did. Right. I think that's the beautiful thing about the human spirit is that anyone can step up in a time of need, no matter how small or how large of an act.
But those moments on the roof were a culmination of the love and support throughout my life that I received from my parents. It was a culmination from... And I think a lot of people think, oh, Marine Corps, combat oriented, you know, hardcore, whatever you think of when you think of Marines, good or bad. Everyone thinks it's all about training.
Yeah.
And every day we're just throwing grenades around the place, fake grenades. And, hey, who's going to jump on it?
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Chapter 6: What lessons does Kyle emphasize about mindset during adversity?
I guess that's what I'm curious about. Is it a conscious decision or is it something more like the training and the moment and the stories and the tradition?
So many people think it's training, but an amazing aspect of the Marine Corps, especially through boot camp, is through the difficult moments of training, when you're worn down, when you've been out training and you're tired and you're hungry and you've been exposed to the elements for days on end.
Your drill instructors, it's a very intentional part of boot camp that in between those moments, they'll sit you down and they teach you about the history of the Marine Corps, those that came before you, those stories of unfathomable courage. I mean, I remember sitting there in boot camp during the crucible, our big final event before we received our Eagle Globe and Anchor.
Uh, and I believe I speak for all of us when sitting there, I just thought, I mean, who could, who could do something like this? How can someone, and now I understand more, not for my action, but just from, from being a Marine and having that time in service. But, um, Just unfathomable acts of courage.
Those that from all branches, Marine Corps aside, just those that at 17, 18 years old in World War II, when they knew that the chances of making it onto the beach, making it to the beach even, and then past the beach and surviving what lay ahead were such great.
such a minuscule chance right and when those doors open they charge for it anyway right and you know i think a lot of people just in conversations i've had or just um you know the love and support that i'm i'm so humbled to be given sometimes it seems like oh kyle the first guy in history that jumped on a grenade
But you look back at every conflict and there are those that, you know, Grenader not only went above and beyond, but gave that last full measure of devotion for each other or for a purpose greater than themselves or any individual. And so that's why I say I was just happened to be on that roof and in those moments. Right.
But again, it was a culmination of so many different things in my life for my family, coaches on the athletic fields growing up. And I think ultimately, I'm just so thankful that I reacted the way I did. Now, granted, I wish I could have taken every bit of that grenade, but... at least I can live my life and not always wonder why I didn't or if I could have.
Why do you mean you wish you took every bit of it?
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Chapter 7: How does Kyle Carpenter define true courage beyond the battlefield?
Now, unofficially, which, you know, the Medal of Honor that was awarded to me, although it never is and never will be an individual award or recognition. Sure. That came from over two years and almost 300 pages of investigation.
It's not a thing they give lightly based on one person's opinion.
Correct. You need multiple opinions. You need forensic blast evidence. And so, you know, they talked to me in the very beginning. And I really had nothing helpful to contribute.
But even if I did, I think it's important to note that if you are injured in whatever incident they are investigating, you can't be an eyewitness because if you have any sort of head trauma, obviously your facts might not be that accurate. Right. Safe to say I had some head trauma.
But I don't, you know, unofficially I would say the only thing that I remember before wasn't really anything cognitive. It was just, you know, knowing how you and your body feels. I remember almost as if I was an empty shell. I don't have any visual recollection. I just, I felt like I was on my knees and my body was falling forward. And then I felt like I got hit in the face really hard.
But my actual kind of somewhat coherent thoughts followed the blast. And I remember being extremely confused. And my vision was as if I was looking at a TV with no connection, just white and gray static. My ears are ringing extremely loud, just as they are this very moment that we're doing this podcast.
Oh, they just remain ringing always.
Yeah, which is, you know, can be daunting at times, but just got to remain focused. And, you know, every day is driving on for the mission. But after I felt like I got hit really hard in the face, that was followed by extreme confusion and disorientation. So much so that I was trying to just to get a grasp of where I was and what happened. And I've been in Afghanistan for over four months now.
And so my first thought was, OK, I'm pretty sure I was in Afghanistan. The last thing I can remember, I was on a roof. But what could have injured me this bad on a roof? And then I thought maybe I got off of the roof, went on a foot patrol because I
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Chapter 8: What perspectives does Kyle offer on living a meaningful life after trauma?
Before we got there, they had tried that and the banks of the river would collapse and Marines were drowning from being trapped in these armored vehicles. So we only had feet everywhere we went and, you know, traditional Marine style. Part of the tradition also. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And so I thought maybe I went on a patrol, stepped on an IED and just the roof is the last thing I can remember. And that thought process was interrupted by, of course, what I thought was my buddies messing with me because Marines and service members are experts at messing with each other. It's kind of like our secondary job. Sure.
And I thought, man, you know, whatever's happened, I can't believe in this banged up state that I'm in that my buddies are pouring warm water all over me. And that fragmented piece allowed the other ones to kind of fall into place. And I realized like, oh man, whatever's happened, my buddies aren't messing with me and that's not warm water. I'm profusely bleeding out. And so at that moment,
while getting just, I would say tired, but that would be an understatement. It's probably the life leaving your body. Just drained, draining to and from your core.
Right.
Just hard to describe. But at that moment, when I realized that, I knew that was it. I thought about my family. how devastated my mom was going to be when that government car pulled into the driveway or those two Marines in uniform knocked on the front door to tell my family I would not be coming home alive.
And lastly, I said a quick prayer for forgiveness for anything I had done wrong in my life. And I faded from consciousness in the world for what I thought was the last time. So you thought you're dying. certain without a doubt that that was it. And, you know, I couldn't feel my face except for it to get a little graphic here.
I remember when I first woke up, I was trying to, I was trying to feel my mouth or my jaw with my tongue, but nothing was there. And so but these final moments, you know, I was kind of because I couldn't feel my face. I really didn't have that deep of sense of what was going on. But I remember kind of crying a little bit in my head. Not because it wasn't, why am I here?
You know, why did I even do this? Why am I in this position? It was more just, you know, I just turned 21 over there on my birthday, crawling through a field, getting shot at thinking, man, I hope one day I can get my first cold legal beer, you know? Yeah. But I just turned 21 and it was more just. The heaviness of the moment. The heaviness of the moment.
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