Mississippi native & Medal of Honor recipient honored at supercomputer unveiling

One Mississippi native and Medal of Honor recipient was honored when the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg unveiled its newest supercomputer today.

The new supercomputer is named “Carpenter” in honor of Cpl. William Carpenter, a Flowood native and the youngest living Medal of Honor recipient.

While serving in Afghanistan, Carpenter and another marine were at a rooftop security position when they were attacked by grenades.

Carpenter moved toward the grenade and shielded his friend from the blast, surviving the attack and saving his friend’s life.

“William Carpenter, along with previous supercomputing system namesakes LCpl Roy Wheat and CPT Ed Freeman, exemplifies the very reason why our mission is so critical,” said David Horner, director ERDC’s Information Technology Laboratory. “The opportunity to help protect those who are willing to give everything to keep others safe is not something to take lightly.”

Three years ago, ITL made the decision to honor Mississippi-native Medal of Honor recipients by naming high-performance computing systems after these American heroes.

Kyle is the youngest and one of only eight living recipients to be awarded a Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan, which was presented by President Barack Obama at the White House in 2014.

“It is so humbling to be recognized by and named after such a powerful and purposeful creation, that will be used to make our nation and world better and safer,” said Carpenter.

Supercomputing helps reduce defense system costs by shortening the design cycle and reducing reliance on expensive and destructive live experiments and prototype demonstrations which provides a technological advantage for DoD projects.

“This supercomputer has over 9 petaFLOPS of compute capability,” said Mr. Bobby Hunter, chief of the Supercomputing Research Center. “To help put that into context, if we had Cpl. Carpenter and 9,999 scientists and engineers all doing a calculation per second on a calculator, it would take them 28,500 years to do what this computer can do in one second.”

Cpl. Carpenter’s image is stretched across the entire front of the machine, making this one of the most striking and eye-catching supercomputers that has ever called ERDC home.

“That was one of the most impactful hours of my life,” said Carpenter. “I thought I was going to look out and see a blank computer with nothing on it, and then I looked through that window, and I saw myself. But really, I saw our military and our nation and so many that have given so much and ultimately a moment for all of us, but for those that never made it home as well.”