"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...
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