Thomas reduced the sentence, remitted the bad conduct discharge, and allowed McKeon to remain in the Corps with the reduced rank of private. Prior to the reduction, his sentence was a $270 fine, 9 months of confinement at hard labor, and a bad conduct discharge. The Secretary of the Navy eventually reduced the sentence to three months in the brig and reduction to private, but with no discharge or fine. McKeon then returned to active duty but never regained his former rank and was medically retired in 1959 as a corporal because of a back injury. He then worked as an inspector of standards for his home state of Massachusetts. In a 1970 "Newsweek" interview, McKeon told of his lifelong burden of guilt and how he prayed every day to keep the dead recruits in His safekeeping and for his own forgiveness. McKeon died on November 11, 2003, at age 79.