Roadway in Yorktown Dedicated to Local Army Hero
By Rick Pezzullo
Clayton Carpenter first left his mark in the community as a scholastic track and field athlete at Lakeland High School. He went on to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 2005 and was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2008.
In September 2012, he earned a place with the Night Stalkers, an elite operations unit that flies missions behind enemy lines. On January 15, 2014, Carpenter died at the age of 30 while flying a Blackhawk helicopter on a training mission in Georgia.
At the time of his death, Carpenter, who grew up in Cortlandt, was an Army captain. He was posthumously promoted to Major.
On Saturday, a stretch of Route 118 in Yorktown from Underhill Avenue to Commerce Street was dedicated as “The Major Clayton Carpenter Memorial Highway” with family, former classmates and local officials fondly remembering Carpenter as a local hero, and so much more.
“It is still quite difficult to use the past tense,” said Army Captain Amy Daschle, daughter of Councilman Vishnu Patel, who was in Carpenter’s graduating class at West Point and maintained a close friendship with him.
“He was a loyal friend with a tremendous heart. Clayton excelled at everything he did,” she said. “I saw first-hand there was nothing he couldn’t do. He exemplified the very best and his character is one we should always aspire to.”
Captain Art Eusebio served with Carpenter in the 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment in Hawaii and said Carpenter “became a man larger than life.”
“Being in the presence of Clay was awesome,” he said. “He had an immaculate soul. Clay believed if he was going to change the world you didn’t have to measure him by the size of his brain but by the size of his heart. He believed what he was doing to the very last second was he was making the world a better place.”
Carpenter’s mother, Colette Carpenter, said although her son died young, “he led a life rich in time.”
“I will never forget his honor and his wonderful smile,” she said. “God was a major part of Clayton’s life. Every cloud has a silver lining, and that’s all the people that have gotten together to remember and honor Clay.”
State Senator Terrence Murphy (R/Yorktown), who worked with Assemblyman Kevin Byrne (R/Mahopac) to get support from the Legislature to dedicate the roadway for Carpenter, presented Colette Carpenter with several mementos, including a letter Carpenter sent him on May 23, 2005 thanking him for treating a tweaked hamstring Carpenter had in high school.
“This was something that was very special to me,” Murphy said. “He was an unbelievable kid.”
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
