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To ends of earth, and back to Hudson

A former Hudson High football player has commanded Navy subs in the Persian Gulf and below arctic ice. Now he'll train others.

By PHIL DAVIS
Published December 11, 2005

Cmdr. Dennis Carpenter has plenty of exciting stories about his career in U.S. Navy fast attack submarines. He just can't talk about it.

The former Hudson High football player was in the thick of the undersea Cold War between the United States and its former superpower rival, the Soviet Union.

Just don't ask him for specifics.

Carpenter, 43, also was aboard subs that fired Tomahawk cruise missiles, delivered elite Navy SEALs on missions during the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars "and other things I can't talk about."

"People outside the Navy don't realize that submarines are contributing quite a bit (in Iraq)," Carpenter said in a phone interview from Norfolk, Va. "You just don't hear about it. There are numerous things I can't talk about that I've done in my career."

Last week, Carpenter handed over his billion-dollar, Los Angeles-class nuclear attack sub, the USS Charlotte, to a new commander. He slipped away from his change of command reception to talk about growing up in Pasco County and playing football for the Hudson High Cobras in the late 1970s.

He also was cleared to talk a little about his last mission aboard the USS Charlotte: an underwater journey beneath the North Pole that climaxed with a record-breaking ascent through 5-feet of arctic ice and a game of football at 50 degrees below zero.

The Charlotte sailed from Pearl Harbor on Oct. 27 and headed toward the arctic ice cap.

On Nov. 10, the crew began a 12-hour search for a safe spot to break through the thick polar ice and explore. When the Charlotte's sail (the tower on top of the main tube of the submarine) punched through 5 feet of ice, it set an ice-surfacing record for a Los Angeles-class submarine.

"It was exciting," Carpenter said. "You can hear the ice breaking up as you surface through it. I've been under the ice but I never surfaced there."

Before the Charlotte's 137 sailors and 17 officers could begin enjoying 18 hours of "ice liberty," a team had to dig the sub's main hatch out of the ice. Powerful lights were set out to compensate for the pole's perpetual winter darkness.

Then it was time for some freezing fun.

Crew members called home on satellite phones. They snapped photos, many of which are hard to make out because of the darkness. In one shot of the crew, the sub's sail is barely visible against the black background. The crew also taped a "spirit spot" that was shown at the annual Army-Navy football game on Dec. 3 (Navy won 42-23.)

The latest group of Navy "Bluenoses," a nickname for sailors who cross the Arctic Circle, logged a little time with the pigskin on the ice before heading on to Norfolk, Va.

Twenty-seven years ago, Carpenter made a name for himself on the considerably warmer football fields of Pasco County.

Keith Newton, whose 33-year Hudson High coaching career includes Carpenter's years on the team, remembers being a little skeptical when the 5-foot 8-inch, 130-pound kid came onto the field and tried out for the Hudson Cobra's defensive line. Most defensive players had about 50 pounds on him.

"When Dennis started for us as a defensive end, he probably weighed 130 pounds soaking wet," Newton said recently. "But he gave every ounce of his body every time he played. He was an amazing player. Most kids that size wouldn't be able to last on a varsity level.

"We didn't think he would be able to handle it and he proved everyone wrong," Newton continued. "He stepped right into a starting position and never gave it up."

As a junior in 1978, Carpenter was named to the All-North Suncoast football team.

The Carpenters moved to Hudson in 1973. Henry Carpenter, a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, decided to settle down near his wife's hometown of New Port Richey. Jean Carpenter still lives at their home off State Road 52 in Hudson. Her husband died in 2003.

Dennis Carpenter is the youngest of Jean Carpenter's five sons.

"He's my baby," she said. "He is just a wonderful son. I expected him to do good. But none of us knew what he was going to get into."

Carpenter graduated from Hudson High in 1980 and went on to study engineering at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Busy with deployments, he has seldom made it back to Pasco over the years.

"That's still home," he said. "I still vote in Hudson, Fla."

Growing up in Hudson, he had gone fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. But a career at sea didn't occur to him until he realized an engineering career might land him behind a desk.

Carpenter saw a recruiting poster for the U.S. Navy nuclear submarine program. He signed up. In 1984, already in training to be a naval officer, Carpenter graduated magna cum laude from USF with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering. He received his Navy commission the same year.

In his 21-year Navy career, Carpenter has served aboard five submarines and attended the Naval War College, where he earned a master's degree in national security and strategic studies in 1995. His current rank of commander is equivalent of lieutenant colonel in other services.

"I looked into it, liked what I saw and took it all the way," said Carpenter, whose next assignment will be training new submarine commanders at Pearl Harbor. "I wanted to do something different from what the other guys getting engineering degrees were doing.

"I'd rather be driving a submarine."

[Last modified December 11, 2005, 02:43:21]