Word: mckeon
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Shortly after 8 o'clock on Sunday night, Staff Sergeant Matthew C. McKeon, favoring a pulled leg muscle, limped into the barracks of Platoon 71 at the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C. As the shaven-headed Marine boots popped to attention, McKeon gazed coldly around and snapped: "Fall out in two minutes." The men-mostly 17-and 18-year-olds-grabbed for their caps and fatigue jackets, scrambled for the door, formed outside the barracks. Lean, usually soft-spoken Matt McKeon, 31, rapped out a crisp command and, using a broomstick for support on his lame...
...Desserts. As Parris Island drill instructors go, McKeon had been gentle with the clumsy, eager boots of Platoon 71, whom he supervised as junior D.I. under saltier, tougher-talking Staff Sergeant E. H. Huff. It was McKeon's first platoon after graduation from drill instructors' school, and he aimed to make it the honor outfit of the famed Parris Island boot camp. He encouraged the lads when they shot low scores on the rifle range ("Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it"); he patiently repeated his drill instructions until even the dullest could...
...found some of the recruits stretched out on the grass, even sleeping, in totally un-bootlike posture. Although it was Sunday, he had ordered a "field day" -a complete cleanup of the barracks with swab, scrub brush, creosote and yellow soap. At supper that evening the watchful McKeon had noticed that some of his boots took second helpings of dessert, despite his warning (as one recruit recalled) "against overeating sweets, especially when out on the rifle range. It makes shooting more difficult." With calm detachment, McKeon ordered another scrubdown of the already bleach-cleaned barracks, then decided to interrupt...
...darkness. The column snaked in a northerly direction across Rifle Range Baker toward Ribbon Creek, a murky, treacherous tidal stream that ranges from 100 ft. wide and 4 ft. deep at low tide to 250 ft. wide and 12 ft. deep at high tide. To reach the stream, McKeon had to lead his men across a 100 ft. border of deep black mud carpeted by yard-high swamp grass. He did not hesitate, although he later admitted that he had "never been in the area before," a tragic lapse from the basic rule that a troop leader must know...
...McKeon reached the edge of Ribbon Creek-some 3,700 ft. from the platoon's barracks-shortly after 8:30 p.m. The tide, with its strong current, was rising. McKeon stepped from the mudbank into the chill (58°) water and turned upstream, hugging the shoreline. Turning, he called out: "Everybody O.K.?" Behind him, the marching column was floundering. Again he shouted: "Everybody O.K.?" The answer came loud: "No!" Men were deep in the mud; Recruit Raymond Delgado yelled that he was up to his chest in the muck. McKeon turned to Recruit John Michael Maloof and ordered...