ARMED FORCES: The Road Back

“The real punishment will be always the memory of Ribbon Creek on Sunday night, April 8, 1956. Remorse will never leave him.”

So wrote Navy Secretary Charles Thomas last week in drastically reducing the rigorous court-martial sentence of Marine Staff Sergeant Matthew C. McKeon, who led six marine recruits to their death on a disciplinary march last spring (TIME, April 23 et seq.). Thomas cut the sentence from nine months’ hard labor to three months (leaving McKeon to complete four more weeks), canceled a $270 fine and a bad-conduct discharge, confirmed the reduction in grade to private.

“Sergeant McKeon was a capable noncommissioned officer, dedicated to the U.S. Marine Corps … a good man, sincere, and of a sympathetic nature,” wrote the Secretary. “I, in my mind, am sure that Sergeant McKeon never meant to harm his men … I am convinced that a punitive separation from the service is not necessary . . . nor would the interests of the Marine Corps be served. [But] retention of McKeon as a noncommissioned officer with command authority [could not] be justly rationalized on the theory that his tragic failure to meet command responsibility constituted merely a single lapse in his performance of duty. One lapse . . . is just one lapse too many . . . I have restored to Sergeant McKeon the opportunity to build for himself a useful and honorable career . . .

I recognize that the road back will be a hard one … I am giving him his chance.” Said McKeon when he heard the news:

“I will try to be the very best private in the Marine Corps.”