A member of the 75th Ranger Regiment was killed in an airborne training accident in Arizona on Friday, according to a Tuesday release from Army Special Operations Command.
Sgt. 1st Class Ethan Carpenter, who had been assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia’s Regimental Special Troops Battalion, died of his injuries after a free-fall jump, the release said.
“He did the toughest jobs well and was the consummate team member when it counted the most, both in garrison training and in deployed combat," his battalion commander, Col. Joseph Ewers, said in the release. “He represented our nation’s best, and we’ll miss him dearly.”
Carpenter had been assigned to Fort Benning as a reconnaissance specialist since June 2017. He enlisted in 2007, joining the regiment’s 1st Battalion after training and deploying eight times, seven to Afghanistan and once to Iraq.
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His is the special operations community’s first parachute training death this year. After a record-high five deaths in 2015, the services reported one each in 2016 and 2017, until two Army sergeants major were killed in 2018.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.
