John Herbert Carpenter

John Herbert Carpenter Aug. 25, 1953 – June 19, 2017 John Herbert Carpenter was born at Tachikawa Air Force Base in Japan on August 25, 1953 to Claude and Elona Carpenter. Claude was serving in the Air Force. John was the third child in the family joining two older sisters, Linda and Wendy. Only two weeks after being born, he traveled with his mother and his two older sisters across the Pacific Ocean back to America. His middle name, Herbert, was the name of his grandfather, Herbert Ferdinand Carpenter. His early life was characterized by multiple moves as his father served in the Air Force with stints both inside and outside the United States. John’s third sister, Claudia, was born in England. His father worked as a ROTC commander at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. My dad described many memories from this time period – mostly involving swimming and baseball. He played catcher on local youth baseball teams. He loved to tell the story of how he learned to swim. His parents had been visiting a swim club to decide whether to join. He said he just jumped in. Neither of his parents knew how to swim and felt very helpless. However, John learned right away and was soon on the swim team. He was tall for his age (6) and dominated the local swim league in the 8 and under division. His older sisters also began to swim, as well. His mother even coached the swim team, but she never learned to swim. This activity served to unite his family on summer mornings. He attended a Catholic Elementary school and had a few stories about being corrected by the nuns. In a telling class picture, he is shown standing next to his nun/teacher – the place reserved for the child who needed the most direction. His father’s work soon moved the family to northern Virginia where they settled into a home on 8th Place in McLean, Virginia. John spent the rest of his youth here. The suburbs of DC were a relatively new thing and McLean was far different from what it is now. While living there John worked as a shoe store salesman at Tyson’s Corner and enjoyed bowling at the local bowling alley and reading comic books purchased from Dart Drug. He attended Cooper Middle School followed by Langley High School. School divisions were changed and he ended up graduating from McLean High School in 1971. He was an excellent test-taker and did well in school. He also sang in the Madrigals, an a cappella group. He loved reading science fiction novels written by Heinlein, Clark and others. He was captivated by the idea of Outer Space. With the landing on the moon a few weeks before his sixteenth birthday, the entire Solar System seemed destined to be explored in his lifetime. With two older sisters in college, John looked for a way to help pay for college. His parents were very proud when he was accepted at West Point. The Vietnam War was still going on when he entered USMA. He remembered protestors outside the gates. He also remembered hearing the announcements from the poop deck during meals that announced the death of recent graduates. War fighting did not come naturally to him and despite growing up in a military household, he had not spent significant time camping, shooting, or playing in the woods. Basic training presented challenges as he entered West Point. Having his leg in a cast did not help. After absorbing a few body blows and struggling with home sickness, he gradually saw the wisdom and the benefit to the disciplined life style that the military academy provided. He was befriended by a ‘cow’ or junior named Bill Fox after joining the bowling team. My dad always jokingly said that he joined the bowling team because he looked for the team with the most road dates (or opportunities to get away from West Point). Bill’s friendship made things easier. This was another turning point in his life. Bill was dating Wendy Galing whose best friend, Kathy Rexrode would often hang around as a chaperone. Bill then decided to bring John along to distract the chaperone. Bill’s plan was successful. He eventually married Wendy and John eventually married Kathy. John continued to date Kathy as he went through Combat Engineers Officer basic course in Ft. Belvoir, VA. He also earned his airborne award at Fort Benning and his air assault badge. He started his service as a second lieutenant at Fort Campbell, Kentucky as part of the 101st Airborne unit. This assignment allowed him to wear the ‘blue beret’. He married Kathy on July 31st 1976. Their first child, Julia was born on Christmas Eve the following year. This time was characterized by many trips to the field where he would ‘build stuff and then blow it up’. Both jobs critical to the success of a combat engineering group. During one of his stints in the field, he lost his wedding ring. He had his whole unit line up and walk down an area in the woods looking for it, but to no avail. After his time in Kentucky, he went to Ft. Belvoir for advanced training and then to Osan Air Base in Korea where he helped build runways, the water treatment plant and other buildings. Unlike some trips to Korea (a common hardship tour location) John was able to bring Kathy and Julia with him. Just before the birth of his second child, John Stuart, the family moved to Boston where he obtained a master’s degree in Civil Engineering at MIT while being mentored by Herbert Einstein, Albert Einstein’s nephew. John’s next assignment was the Defense Nuclear Agency in Virginia . This allowed him to travel to Los Alamos, New Mexico and the Pacific islands associated with the nation’s nuclear program. Robert was born while the family was living in Burke, Va. Soon after, the family moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas so John could attend Command and General Staff College. At this location he helped Julia grow a love for the sport of swimming. On Saturdays the two of them would drive all over the Kansas City area to all day swim meets. The next assignment was in Heidelberg, West Germany. The family lived in Patrick Henry Village. He applied, again, for the US Space Program, hoping to become an astronaut, but was not selected. Dinner conversations often revolved around solving math problems and the Solar System. He also bought a KayPro computer and began programming his own file access system that was easier to use than DOS. After two years, the family then moved north a few hours to Frankfurt, West Germany. This was a difficult time. Soon after arriving, he departed to serve in Operation Desert Shield and then continued to serve in Operation Desert Storm. He was one of the senior officers for the 317th Engineer Battalion. It was hard for him to leave the family and the time did not go by quickly. He came back from the war and soon moved our family to Washington, DC to work at the Pentagon. Washington DC had changed a lot since he had left in 1971. Fort Belvoir was now part of the DC metropolitan area and McLean was now a relatively exclusive community due to its proximity to Washington DC. His parents graciously allowed him and his family to live in their house for three years as he saved to purchase a house. They purchased a small Ford Escort and every morning, Kathy would drive John to work at the Pentagon. During the summers she would then drive Julia to swim practice at Fort Myer. Then she would drive John to swim practice at Fort Myer. It was a lot of driving, but their frugality paid off and they were soon able to find a home – 6827 Rosemont Drive in McLean. In 1997, he transitioned to a civilian career with CACI and then TAPE where he worked as a government contractor. This was his second career after serving in the US Army for 21 years. He was a strong advocate for his children’s participation in local swim, basketball and baseball leagues. He would fill in as coach when needed, but seemed to be happiest when watching his kids participate. He never missed an opportunity to remind us that we had the potential to be the best – but that we had to work at it. As his children moved away and went to college, he helped care for his aging parents who moved to Florida in 2003. He missed the kids and soon began a family tradition of going to Disney World around Christmas time. Although he didn’t seem to enjoy the rides – he did enjoy the time with his growing family that included 6 grandchildren and a granddog. He first got sick in the 2001 time frame with stomach lymphoma. The cancer returned in 2011 and was treated with Chemo. But the cancer returned and around Father’s Day 2017 he passed on. Despite dealing with health challenges for close to 17 years, he remained positive and active. He loved playing golf and spent a lot of time at Jefferson Hills Golf Course. He followed the Baltimore Orioles for many years during the lean and not-so-lean years. He loved watching baseball. He loved science fiction and comic books. Everyone he knew had to sit and watch the movie Thor, with him for instance. His library of science fiction books was amazingly complete with hundreds of paper back novels. He loved junk food. Saturday and sometimes even Sunday morning there were donuts and coffee. The grandchildren called coffee Pop’s juice and knew that when they woke up there would always be donuts! Friday nights for most of the late nineties meant Jerry’s Subs and Pizza. McDonalds was a favorite of his dating from his teen years when he would tool to the local McDonalds in his 1953 VW bug.