I want to begin my comments by saying this is an excellent balanced book and that Stevens deserves a lot of credit. I would further recommend it to any Marine or others interested in Marine Corps history.I will also state it is my opinion that S.Sgt. Matthew McKeon was a good man who made a tragic mistake. The factors leading up to the events of the evening of April 8, 1956 are manifold and can only be fully understood by reading Stevens' book.
My personal perspective comes from having served in the USMCR and the USMC from October 1956 until August 1962 when I was Honorably discharged as a Corporal E-4. I went to Parris Island in early February of 1957 and my recruit training virtually overlaps the events of a year earlier, putting me at the rifle range at about the same time of year.
Like all of us who went though boot training, I too pulled butts at the range. The discipline and control there was far different than back at main side so on several days I took the opportunity to spend my entire lunch break walking all over the Ribbon Creek area. I wanted to understand this incident.
Definitions from Webster...
Marine: Of or relating to the sea.
Amphibious: Able to live on both land and in water.
Swim: To propel oneself in water...To float on a liquid...
DI Motto: Let's be damn sure that no man's ghost will ever say "If your training program had only done its job."
And from Chesty Puller we learn the mission of Marine Corps training! "...success in battle..."
When I got to Parris Island, I was shocked to see recruits who could not swim had joined a service called the Marine Corps. I also thought it strange the USMC would accept anyone who could not swim, but I guess the Navy does too. How much W.W.II footage have you seen with Marines wading ashore under heavy fire when the Peter and Mike boats could not make it to the beach? Or, in jungles up to their chests and necks in water at Guadalcanal and then all over the south Pacific and Vietnam as well.
HELLO! This is the mission!
In training "...the nonswimmers had been taught how to float, tread water, and dog paddle. All recruits in the platoon had received ten hours of swimming instruction before April 8."
Platoon 71 got themselves into trouble by not following McKeon and by "joking, kidding, and slapping others with twigs while yelling "Snake" or "Shark! Suddenly there was a cry for help and panic broke out..."
I had looked closely at Ribbon Creek while at the rifle range and my "vivid" reaction then was someone would need to be retarded or radically incompetent to drown in that area! Several in platoon 71 fit this description.
"About three-fourths of the platoon was squared away. But the remainder were foul balls." "For example, eight of the men in Platoon 71 were either illiterate or had General Classification Test scores - approximately equivalent to an IQ test - below 70."
McKeon's colorful assessment that 25 percent of the platoon were "foul balls", may not have been far off the mark based on the testimony of several members of the platoon at the trial and in later interviews"
"The quality of some of the men under McKeon's tutelage may also be measured by their behavior after completing boot camp. At the time of the court-martial, two men were AWOL from Parris Island, one was AWOL from Camp Lejeune, one had deserted, one was in the brig, and one was awaiting punishment by his commanding officer." Remember these men did not complete their recruit training under McKeon, so other DI's also had a chance to make these guys good Marines.
SDI Staff Sergeant Huff had basically washed his hands of the young men under him...Stevens states "McKeon was failing, and he knew it." I think it was SDI Huff who was failing.
As far as the charges of being drunk the testimony is flawed and inconclusive. "Not until the court-martial nearly four months later would Dr. Atcheson admit that there was no clinical evidence of intoxication."
His own recruits "...testified that there was no evidence that Mckeon was drunk or impaired by drinking". Of all the recruits in the platoon who had made statements "...not one...had anything negative or critical to say about Sergeant McKeon".
McKeon was victim of being a nice guy by helping Scarborough with his bottle, allowing him to leave it in the barracks, driving Scarborough to the NCO club and accepting congratulattory drinks he never finished. Granted, McKeon used bad judgement but he was certainly not a bad guy.
S.Sgt. McKeon was the first person in the water and he was the last one out. He was leading, not just ordering recruits into an unknown situation. It is empirically obvious that if they had just followed him, as instructed, they all would have gotten back safely. Basic for military training!
Bottom line, McKeon was a new junior DI carrying virtually the whole burden of squaring away this platoon. When I got there a year later there was a "Motivation Platoon". I don't know if this approach existed in 1956 but what I saw of the "Motivation Platoon" regimen would have straightened out these "foul balls".
Although busted to Private, McKeon was allowed to stay in the Marine Corps. He attempted to rebuild his career, capitalizing on his W.W.II carrier experience. He worked with an all-weather fighter squadron and supplemented his private's pay by working nights in the kitchen of the EM club. Remember he had a wife and kids!
Earlier that year he had earned his squadrons "Marine of the Month" award.
"With one exception, all of the men interviewed forty years later spoke as highly of their former drill instructor as they had at the trial."
Enough said!
