The Stunning Blow

As the gaunt, impassive Marine staff sergeant snapped to ramrod attention before the officers at the court-martial table, the little sounds of restlessness in the green-walled auditorium fell off to dead silence. There was tension in the sultry air, for the court had stayed out for a seemingly endless four hours of deliberation. Now the fans whirred softly overhead, and sweat glistened on the faces of most of the spectators.

In a calm, low voice, Colonel Edward L. Hutchinson read from the paper before him: "It is my duty as president of this court to inform you that the court sentences you to be discharged from the service with a bad-conduct discharge, to forfeit $30 a month for nine months, to be confined at hard labor for nine months and to be reduced in grade to private."

"Let's Get Out of Here." The accused's square shoulders sagged; then, without a word, his blue eyes glistening, he did a smart about-face and walked away from the bench. Beside him, his bald, hawk-nosed attorney whirled in the other direction, his face flushed. "No statements. Let's get out of here," rasped the usually helpful Emile Zola Berman as reporters swarmed about them. "No statements," the marine echoed dully. He spread his hands helplessly before him.

Thus did the court-martial of Staff Sergeant Matthew C. McKeon, U.S.M.C., charged with drinking on duty, "oppression" of troops and culpable negligence in the death of six recruits drowned while on a night disciplinary march under his command (TIME, April 23 et seq.), come to an end one afternoon last week at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C.

The General's Handshake. Only a few hours before, 31-year-old Matt McKeon had been relaxed, almost cheerful as he awaited the decision of the six Marine officers and the Navy doctor who had sat as his judges. His demeanor was an understandable result of a week of remarkable courtroom dramatics. McKeon himself had provided the first highlight. Taking the stand in his own defense, he made a convincing witness as he told the court that his only concern, even as he led his platoon through a tidal swamp, had been for his troops--that if they failed to learn the need for discipline, they might "crumble" in combat.

Then came the trial's most surprising performance. Down from Washington to testify in McKeon's behalf came General Randolph McCall Pate, commandant of the Marine Corps and the man who approved the court-martial and, in April, angrily called McKeon's action "deplorable." Tieless and affable, Marine Pate first went out of his way to shake McKeon's hand and murmur "Good luck to you, my boy," before he took the witness stand. If it were up to him, he said haplessly, in answer to "Zuke" Berman's hypothetical question, his only punishment for a man guilty of the offenses that McKeon was charged with would be to "take a stripe away from him ... I suspect I would have transferred him away for stupidity or for lack of judgment. I would probably have written in his service-record book that on no condition was this sergeant to drill recruits again." General Pate, whatever his intention, seemed to be telling the court-martial how it should decide the case.

"We Agree & Regret." After Pate came crusty, gravel-throated Lieut. General Lewis B. ("Chesty") Puller, five-time winner of the Navy Cross and a living legend of the corps. He barked that the Marines' only mission is "success in battle," added that if "we are to win the next war," the nation's youth must get a lot more of the kind of training that Matt McKeon had tried to give Recruit Platoon 71 at Parris Island. Both he and General Pate, Puller roared, "agree and regret that this man was ever ordered to trial."

Respectful but not intimidated, the seven court-martial officers took seven hours to find Matt McKeon guilty of drinking in barracks and simple negligence in the six deaths. But they cleared him of the more serious charges of "oppression" and culpable negligence. McKeon, the court found, was not drunk the night of the march, nor had he been criminally negligent. McKeon, Zuke Berman, the prosecution and the press took the verdict as clear evidence of a Pate-weight sentence to come. Then, next day, came the stunning blow.

The Long Wait. The case now goes automatically to Navy Secretary Charles S. Thomas, who can reduce or suspend but not increase the sentence, or can order a retrial. After his decision a three-man military board of review must take another look. Such steps normally take months. And while they are under way, Marine McKeon will remain restricted to a ten-mile area around Parris Island, uncertain until the last whether he is finally to be read out of the corps in disgrace.

As calm returned to the auditorium where the nation's attention had focused for three weeks, a blunt but inescapable truth emerged from the proceedings: the Marine Corps, as Puller said, exists only to teach men how to fight, win and survive in the crudest test of all--war--and because war is cruel, preparation for it sometimes has cruel results.

What the Secretary of the Navy and the review board must now decide is whether Matt McKeon has been punished for the bad judgment that was peculiarly his, or whether he is paying the price for a timehonored, sometimes brutal but consistently effective system of military training.

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