Ex-Hostage Marine to Be Discharged Within 20 Days

After a review by the Marine Corps commandant, a Marine held hostage for 444 days in Iran and now stationed at Camp Pendleton is being discharged because the psychological problems he suffered from the long captivity made him unfit for service, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday.

Marine Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Fred Peck said the former hostage, Staff Sgt. John McKeel, 35, is being given an honorable discharge because he remains “physically unfit to perform the duties of his rank on active duty,” despite years of counseling and hospitalization.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Alfred Gray conducted an extraordinary review of McKeel’s case and supported a Navy medical board’s Oct. 6 finding that the sergeant suffers from a 10% disability, the spokesman said.

Gray has ordered McKeel discharged within the next 20 days.

Peck said McKeel, a 12-year, nine-month veteran stationed at Camp Pendleton, accepts the service’s decision and will not seek further review. The sergeant will receive $34,000 as a severance payment.

McKeel, a native of Mesquite, Tex., who lives with his wife in San Marcos, has said he suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, or PTSS, and depression stemming from his captivity.

McKeel said he began having flashbacks in 1985.

On Nov. 4, 1979, McKeel was one of nine Marine security guards at the U. S. Embassy in Tehran taken hostage along with 43 others who worked for the State Department. The last of the hostages, including McKeel, were released Jan. 20, 1981.

Peck said McKeel is one of five Marine hostages still on active duty. The four others have risen from enlisted to officer ranks, he said.

Peck said that McKeel, since returning to the United States, “has received every kind of treatment available during the last seven years.”

Despite the counseling, Peck said, McKeel has been unable to complete three job training courses--as a helicopter mechanic, artillery operator and artillery scout. As a result, McKeel has remained without a job specialty and works as a maintenance man and groundskeeper.

Peck said McKeel has not been arrested or been a disciplinary problem.