I hit Parris Island 2 Jan. ’57 also a 17-year-old. We arrived just prior to the fallout from the investigation of the 4 Marine recruits that died from drowning in Nov. ’56.
My 53-year recollection of the incident was that a Staff Sergeant McKean after a night of drinking, rousted his platoon out like at 1 a.m. They had to have been at the rifle range which made the recruits deep into training (8-9) weeks, to be at the range. We were told that S/ Sgt. McKean marched them behind Baker Range into the swamp which we were told was about 4-feet deep — dark night, murkey cold swamp water up to your chest, visions of snakes and other creatures lurking in the water. And, I’m sure, S/Sgt. screaming at them. Four recruits in a group panicked, got cut off from the main body of recruits and ended up drowning.
The news media was informed S/Sgt. was busted to private, three months in the brig and forfeiture of 3 month’s pay.
We were Platoon #5 and had a senior DI and 3 junior DIs. One of our junior DIs was a sadistic SOB and our life was short of h&ll, until all four DIs were relieved of duty and we got 4 new ones. Life was a little better.
There were all kinds of Brass and politicians all over the Island putting on a good show over the drowning incident. Part of the fallout was every morning we had to fallout in scivies and some Lt. would give us a “head and knuckle” inspection to see if we were being abused. Duh! He should have checked the calves of our legs for boot prints and our sides for kidney punches.
All aside, it was a great experience and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Incidentally, when we arrived at Camp Lejeune, (Camp Geiger) for our advanced combat and ITR training, scuttlebutt had it that S./Sgt. McKean was actually busted to buck sergeant and shipped up to Lejeune. The Marines take care of their own.
Semper Fi
Ron Stone, Cpl. USMC.
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The drownings happened in early 1956 March or April.. 6 Marines drowned..I arrived at P. I. June 29th 1956 .Sgt.Robinson ,Sgt. Hurdle. are the only D.I.”s i can remember. I think the trial was going on then. Training was rough, but not as brutal as before.. I did a tour with the 10th Marines .M/4/10 at Camp LeJeune..I served at Marine Barracks , Port Lyautey ,French Morocco 1957/1958. The best duty station in the world. Steve Vano PFC U.S.M.C Semper Fi
arrived PI 1March1957 DI’s were very careful not to abuse anyone physically they did it by pushups running squat thrusts and various other ways.I was also at Port Lyautey arrived Sept 5 1957 1st.platoon Mainside after receiving drivers license was on patrol in ordinance facility.will agree with you that it was a good duty station.house boy’s to clean barracks and make runs to the oasis
I graduated from boot camp in Oct 1958, a year + after the McKeon (spelled correctly) incident. As my name was the same, a Marine McKeon visited our drill instructors and had me report to the DI’s hut. To this day I do not know if it was really the same “McKeon or someone just calling themselves that. I do remember being told by him that I was an insult to the name; he punched me once in the solarplexes and told me to get out of his sight. I do know he was still on the base working in the PX.
The “incident” occurred 8 April, 56. I went thru “boot” at PI in 54. In 56 while stationed at LeJeune we were all required to fill out a questionnaire asking about our experiences in boot camp after the incident took place. One of the questions I can remember to this date was, did your DI intimidate or abuse you? I think everyone must have read the question at the same time as laughter erupted and guys looked at each other in disbelief. One Marine said some Officer had to have posed that question. The better question would have been the opposit!
Check out the book “Court-Martial at Parris Island” by John C. Stevens III. It happened on April 8, 1956. It was about 2015, shortly after sunset. Six men drowned. Memories tend to fade after 62 years.
I was there when this happened, we were told he also was a Medal of Honor holder. We had a recuit smuggle a round off the range and blew the top of his head because he was Jewish and converted to Christian and he just received a letter from his parents declaring him dead. We found out that he was buried face down and his Dress Blues removed. Note, after everyone received plecabos to relax us, we all shot Expert that day. As as to the DI abusing, as platoon leader I caught the hell and passed it down. The 13 weeks of training were hell But it molded me for my future. By the way I made Sgt E5 in 15 months
I was in Platoon146 , Di’s was SSgt. McNeil, Sgt Brunner and Cpl Sanford. Were you in that platoon and do you come from Georgia?
Jim do you remember the recruits name? And where he came from? After all of these years I do. I will never forget seeing his brains scattered on the ceiling. Leads one to wonder, I think E5 at that time was S/Sgt. You were not the leader in my platoon. I later met him at Quantico shortly before I was discharged. . He became a officer. Also not all of us shot Expert that day 2 did not qualify. I myself shot Sharpshooter (214) a few rounds short of Expert. Again leaves one to wonder if you are not a poser.
As of 20 years agp McKeon was living in a small town outside Worcester,Ma. I heard he received a Dishonorable Discharge.
I was stationed a Cherry Pt NC in 1956/57, and it is true that McKeon was bused to Private, but I read that he finally became Cpl again when he was discharged. every morn when we loaded onto our truck to head out to our Radar site out by the rifle range, we wud see him walking up our street to the Chapel where I heard that he would be like an assistant to the chaplains there. Also, one of my squadron mates was from Mass, and from his same home town, so he and his twin brother who was in another squadron there, knew him and one nite we went to the Em club for a few beers. McKeon was cooking pizza there, and so he came over to our table and I did meet him for a short time and seemed like a nice guy . . We had a few beers and I never saw him again. I was in Plt 414 in 1954 and the training was rough and I ended in the Beaufort Naval Hosp for 3 weeks after getting appendicitis on Day 3 in the middle of the nite, so rushed for an emergency operation, but resumed with new Platoon after that. I went thru PI before the incident( 1954), We were Depot Honor Plt!!!!We had 4 DI;s, all from Korean War, and I knew what the trng was going to be since my older brother enlisted in 1952 and I expected the treatment!!!!No picnic, but was worth the experience and wud do it again!!! Semper fi!!! ps While we were on the rifle range, one of our DI.s popped into barracks and found Fire Watch sleeping on his bed, so no need to say what happened after that!!!
Paul, what months in ’54 were you at Parris Island? I was in Platoon 422, A Company, 1st Battalion, which graduated in late December. We had one particularly abusive DI, who was reported to the base Chaplain by a recruit. The DI was busted to private from buck sergeant for that and another charge. I was in base MPs at Lejeune in ’57 and saw the DI in the chow hall, now a buck sergeant again.
Ken. I was in Plt. 423 on PI. Arrived there 1 Oct. 54 and departed 18 Dec. Was in 2nd. Bn. Back to PI 28 Dec. to casual Company until orders to Geiger for ITR early January. We were Depot Honor Plt. I was the right guide. Did you have Squads drill or FMF?
I was in Boot Camp at San Diego when McKeon ran the troops into the swamp…Interesting….The D. I. s stopped hitting…..
“The Marine Corps Recruit Depot began training recruits on Parris Island in 1915. By the mid-twentieth century the military became the main economic engine and largest employer in Beaufort County. When a forced march led to the death of six Marine Recruits on Parris Island on the night of April 8, 1956, Beaufort mourned. A Beaufort Gazette editorial proclaimed the Ribbon Creek Incident “Our Tragedy” because “For it to have happened to Parris Island is the same as if it had happened to Beaufort – so closely interwoven are the lives and fortunes of the military and civilian populations of this section.” (Beaufort Gazette, 12 April 1956, p. 2)” The names of the drowned recruits were: Thomas Curtis Hardeman (Kippee, GA); Donald Francis O’Shea (Brooklyn, NY); Charles Francis Reilly (Ira, NY); Jerry Lamonte Thomas (Columbia, SC); Leroy Thompson (Summerton, SC); and Norman Alfred Wood (Long Island, NY).
Decorated World War II and Korean War veteran Drill Sergeant Matthew C. McKeon was put on trial in July 1956 and ultimately convicted of simple negligence and drinking on duty. Upon review, Secretary of the Navy Charles S. Thomas voided the bad conduct discharge and fine provisions of the court-martial. He reduced the period of confinement to three months but let stand McKeon’s court ordered reduction in rank to Private. In all, McKeon would spend only 12 days in the brig. McKeon would retire out of the Marine Corps on a medical disability in 1959. John Stevens eulogized him on November 15, 2003: “His life thereafter was in many ways an effort to seek redemption for the act that he could never undo. At his court-martial he testified that had he been asked to walk to the gallows he would have done so. A devout man, he prayed every day of his life thereafter for the souls of his lost recruits and for forgiveness.” https://bdcbcl.wordpress.com/2017/06/01/ribbon-creek-incident/ McKeon served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and joined the Marine Corps in 1948. He served at the Chosin Reservoir. I have found no record of him being awarded anything other than standard service and campaign medals.
That is one thing all of us Marines have in common…boot camp.I remember a Chosin Resevoir Marine posted on Sgt Grit that he would rather do the Chosin again than go thru Parris Island again.That said,I’d like to know why Gy/Sgt Joe Felix got 10 years @ Leavenworth for that muslim recruit commiting suicide.It is my view that the Gunny got a raw deal.Something should be done to get the Gunny out of jail.No one in my Platoon 307 ‘got it’ as bad as I did.I should of been recycled but the D.I.s must of loved me.My platoon did not rat out our D.I.s when an investigation was ensued.The Gunny has done enough time.His job was to push the limits to weed out non hackers.He did his job.Anybody doing anything to get him out of jail?
All I can say is WOW to the way that you think, wow! I went to PI in July, 1957 and it was hell but G Sgt Robb made Marines out of us.
McKeon was acquitted on August 4, 1956, of charges of manslaughter and oppression of troops. He was found guilty of negligent homicide and drinking on duty.
Born October 26, 1924
Died November 11, 2003 (aged 79)
West Boylston, Massachusetts
The sentence was a $270 fine, nine months of confinement at hard labor, rank reduced to private and a bad conduct discharge. The Secretary of the Navy later reduced the sentence to three months in the brig, reduction to private with no discharge and no fine. McKeon was transferred to a Marine base in Cherry Point, North Carolina, and attempted to rebuild his shattered career. He was forced to take a job in the enlisted men’s kitchen to augment his meager pay. He eventually was discharged as a Corporal in 1959 due to medical problems. McKeon lived out his life in West Boylston, Massachusetts, and made his living as an inspector of standards for the states. In 1970, he told Newsweek that he was always haunted by the Ribbon Creek tragedy and the fact that the young men who drowned would have now had families of their own. He said he prayed every day for forgiveness and to keep the boys in God’s safekeeping. He was survived by his wife, five children and eight grandchildren.
My time at The University Of Parris Island began February 14th 1956 and assigned to Platoon 63 Third Battalion. T/Sgt. W.E. Muldrew SDI was out top, a real solid Marine who demanded every bit of disiplin and attention to his troops from those under him. We were on the rifle range with an opposing Platoon who were marched into the swamp on the night in question. I remember standing in rank outside our barracks while an inspection was being conducted of us and the barracks the day prior to the swamp march and we were informed that we failed the inspection do to sand being thrown about the floor from the fire buckets. Later we heard that it was ssgt. McKeon’s platoon that was responsible as they were supposedly undisciplined. It also was said that McKeon caught a bucket full of hell from our DI’s. The story we were told was that ssgt. McKeon while going through boot camp himself after enlisting in the Marine Corps, felt that the recruits were being trained too harshly and should be more humanely treated, so when he became a DI himself, he decided to implement that humain treatment towards his recruits and that, being the reason they were considered undisciplined and being the reason he took his platoon on that terrible deadly night march. The troops were told to stay in an orderly file but did not take well to his orders and got pannick when separating from rank. Anyway, this is the way we heard of the incident the next morning and during the following week, all kinds of hell broke out on base with all manner of politicians and military personal coming to Parris Island.
I Arrived at Parris Island July 1956 from a tour in Japan and Okinawa. I was put into the PX because my mos was 2531 and 0849 they needed a 2533. So I worked at the Triangle PX with recruits there and also we had a truck that we went to mess halls sold to the recruits. The platoon was still on Parris Island when I arrived, so shortly after that they left for their duty stations. SSgt McKeon was court martialed and went to Camp LeJune to be a chaplin assitant after his time in the brig which was not very long. The word was he made Cpl later that year. As we all know there are lots of different tales of what happened in his life. You all have good rest of your lives you Marine you. Semper Fi OH RAH Cpl Bernie Caldwell of Hartford Illinois
The Sgt McKeon disaster extended all the way to MCRDSD in the summer of 1957 with a bunch of politicians coming on base to see for themselves how we were treated. I was picked to meet with one from Colorado, my home state. He really didn’t ask any embarrassing questions, and I don’t think any of them wanted to know anything anyway, besides I wouldn’t have told him any either. Plt 178
When I went to Parris Island our DI’s never abused us, we got a lot of PT, when we did not listen well to orders that was the standard they used! and we sure started paying more attention!. as to the DI who was sent to Leavenworth he got what he deserved, if you have to strike a man to obey you have lost the ability to command. the crucible was created by a General who after the death of Marines in Beirut saw the need to have a better more team centered way of getting Marines ready to face combat. yes I agree that the training needs to be rigorous it should be balanced, because you are getting people ready to go fight yet not become some mindless, soulless machine. so my hat is off to those DI’s that have done an excellent job of turning out Marines that have gone out there and served our country with honor and distinction.