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Youngstown Marine to receive Purple Heart
Carouthers’ vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device.
YOUNGSTOWN — Marine Corps Sgt. Stephen A. Carouthers III will be presented the Purple Heart by Glenn Buzzard, a fellow Marine, and two-time recipient of the Purple Heart during World War II.
The ceremony will be conducted at 7 p.m. Tuesday at a meeting of the Tri-State Detachment of the Marine Corps League at ITAMS Post 3, 113 S. Meridian Road.
Carouthers, of Youngstown and formerly of East Liverpool, is being decorated for wounds suffered in Iraq on Aug. 24, 2005. Buzzard was wounded on Saipan and Iwo Jima in the South Pacific.
Carouthers, now 27, was on a mission near Ramadi in the Al-Anbar Province resupplying his unit with rockets and explosives during Operation Sidewinder when his vehicle was hit by an IED (improvised explosive device).
Carouthers described what happened:
“The enemy saw our convoy enter the first platoon firm base. The enemy placed an IED in the road where we were most likely to exit the firm base. My truck was the second-to-last truck in the convoy. When the IED detonated, the front of our armored humvee was hit. The entire front driver side of the vehicle was destroyed. The ... blast concussed everyone in the vehicle and disabled our truck. After we finished the mission, the vehicle team I was attached to was examined by our medics. It was at that time I was evacuated to the main base for further care,” he said.
Carouthers sustained a major concussion, described as severe traumatic brain injury. He received treatment while on active duty in the Marine Corps and through the Department of Veterans Affairs since leaving active duty.
Now a sergeant in the Marine Corps Individual Ready Reserves, Carouthers was on active duty from December 2002 to December 2006. During that time, he served two tours in Iraq. The first was from February to September 2005, and the second from July to October 2006. His boot camp training was at Parris Island, S.C., and his primary stateside duty station was Camp Lejeune, N.C. He is fourth-generation military.
During both tours in Iraq, he was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines regiment, 2nd Marine division. He is an assaultman (demolition and anti-armor expert) in the infantry. During his first tour he was a squad leader, and during his second tour he was an assault section leader. He was also the heavy machine gun operator for convoy security when conducting vehicle missions.
“The missions varied, but the overall mission was to stop the flow of al-Qaida and other foreign fighters from entering Iraq from the west. The History Channel and Oliver North both did documentaries on missions we ran in the Al-Anbar during my first tour. It was kind of crazy watching actors do cheesy re-enactment of things I have done. It was my unit that first tracked and wounded the former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub Al-Masri. He was later killed by special forces a during battle. We spent most of our time tracking down him and his men,” Carouthers said.
Besides the Purple Heart, Carouthers’ decorations include the Combat Action Ribbon, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal and the Good Conduct Medal.
He is now a full-time student at Kent State University Salem Campus and works in patient transport at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Boardman, where his mother, Kimberly Hildebrand, is a nurse.
Carouthers grew up in East Liverpool, where his grandmother, Bobbie Jo Hamilton, lives. He graduated from East Liverpool High School in 2000.