PVT Billy Mack Keen,
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PVT Billy Mack Keen
Billy Mack Keen was born Nov. 29, 1919 at Royse City, Texas 30 miles northeast of Dallas to Ernest Keen, a farmer and laborer, and Mattie Sanders Keen, a homemaker.
By 1930 the family, which then included three children, was living 75 miles west in Wise County, Texas, and the father was a road hand on a public highway project.
In 1939 the father had found 36 weeks of employment and earned $224.
Billy Mack enlisted in the Marines on June 17, 1941. He was killed six months later in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. He was a private first class.
Sources: Wise County (Texas) Messenger; Texas birth certificate; Marine enlistment records and muster roll; Census. Marine photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.