It has been nearly three years since Lance Cpl. Kyle Carpenter’s life changed in a white-hot grenade blast. Posting security on a rooftop with another Marine in Afghanistan, his body was mangled in ways that are difficult to fathom: He sustained catastrophic injuries to his right arm, neck and face, including a jaw that was nearly blown off. Carpenter has undergone more than 30 surgeries since, sharing his story along the way to bring attention to the dangers U.S. forces face. He refused to give up, giving thanks for his survival while pushing through thousands of hours of physical therapy.…
Author Dan Lamothe
Dan Lamothe
I'm a senior writer with Marine Corps Times, covering ground warfare, manpower, weapons acquisition and other beats. I embedded in Afghanistan in spring 2010, and plan to return at least once in 2011.
Marine Corps Times published my story last night correcting the record about Col. George Bristol, a Marine colonel who led a special operations task force in northern Africa the night of the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Despite Pentagon claims that he is retired and can’t be ordered to testify about them, he remains on active duty through the end of the month, Marine officials said Wednesday. As the Weekly Standard points out today, Rep. Frank Wolf, R.-Va., took to the House floor this morning angry about the issue. Check the video: [HTML1] Wolf said trusted…
The Marine Corps has reached a transition point in Libya, replacing reserve Marines who had protecting the U.S. embassy compound in the capital city of Tripoli with active-duty forces from Camp Lejeune, N.C., officials said. The reserve Marines were with Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force-Africa, a unit established in 2011 primarily to train friendly military forces in the region. Its home base is Naval Air Station Sigonella, Italy. The last iteration of SPMAGTF-Africa deployed in January, and send a reinforced platoon to protect the embassy, the unit’s commander, Lt. Col. Daniel Whisnant, told Marine Corps Times in March.…
A short walk from the main U.S. headquarters facility at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, sits a hulking two-story building behind chain link fences and cement walls. It cost $34 million to build, and it will likely never serve any purpose for U.S. forces. That’s the groan-worthy findings of John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. The 64,000 square-foot building has been roundly panned in the media today, after it was highlighted in a Washington Post story this morning. SIGAR, as Sopko’s organization is known, sent Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel a letter this week asking about the decision-making process that…
The latest iteration of the Marine Corps’ Infantry Officer Course began last week, putting dozens of prospective infantry officers through the beginning of 13 weeks of hell. Those who survive will become the service’s latest crop of infantry officers, a demanding profession they were told begins with a simple question: “How do I win?” As mentioned here last week, I was on the scene at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., for Marine Corps Times as the course’s initial Combat Endurance Test took place. It’s an assignment that had us pushing through the forests of Quantico for hours, observing lieutenants as…
QUANTICO, Va. — From the moment before dawn that we stepped out of our vehicles in the woods here, it was plainly obvious it would be a long, demanding day in the wilderness. Tuesday marked the beginning of the latest iteration of the Infantry Officer Course, the Marine Corps’ demanding 13-week course that determines who leads infantry Marines in combat. IOC has been in the news frequently over the last year as a result of the Women in Service Restriction Review, a Pentagon-directed study that is assessing which additional roles female service members can hold in combat units. Currently, female…
Commandant Gen. Jim Amos touched on many topics during a breakfast with media in Washington on Wednesday, yielding headlines that include an update on the state of affairs in Afghanistan and an acknowledgment that the service will likely draw down to 174,000 Marines if drastic federally mandated budget cuts stay in place. Not to be overlooked, however, is the commandant’s characterization of his new unit, Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force-Crisis Response. The 550-strong force deployed in April, providing Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of U.S. Africa Command, a designated unit equipped to response to emergencies that erupt in volatile…
If you haven’t seen the photographs yet of a Navy corpsman feeding baby bunnies, it’s probably a matter of time. A Reddit user with the handle TokyoManeater69 posted them online, and they have since gone viral after the website Buzzfeed picked up on them. Several sites have said he is a U.S. Marine, perhaps confused because he was based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. In comments on the site, however, he says he is a corpsman: He posted a video online recently here: [HTML1] On Reddit, the corpsman offered the following: I live in Camp Pendleton, Ca. And as I was…
June has been a rough year in Afghanistan for one of the Marine Corps’ closest allies, the Republic of Georgia. The small eastern European nation has lost at least 10 soldiers in recent attacks, including a June 6 truck bomb ambush that killed seven and wounded nine others in Helmand province’s Now Zad district. Another bomb in May in Musa Qala district killed three Georgian soldiers. It’s at times like these that Americans should remember just how closely the Georgians and U.S. Marines are intertwined on the battlefield. The Georgians began deploying a battalion at a time to northern Helmand…
The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit landed in Jordan recently, putting the bulk of its 2,400 personnel on land to participate in Exercise Eager Lion. It’s an annual event designed to improve security in the region and relationships between the two militaries. As MEUs frequently do, however, the unit has cast a long shadow across the region. Ongoing fighting in Syria between government forces and rebels has gripped the region, leading to some foreign media reports questioning whether the Marines have been stationed along the Syria-Jordan border for the sake of security. Take this one: A large American military force disembarked…
