Born: September 14, 1925
Died: October 15, 2006
Campaigns Served: Namur
Highest Rank Attained: Private First Class
Decorations:
Keith Cerling enlisted in the Marine Corps on the last day of his seventeenth year. After completing boot camp in San Diego, he was assigned to the new Fourth Marine Division. Cerling was assigned to Charlie Company as a rifleman.
PFC Cerling participated in the battle of Namur, and was transferred out of the battalion in the spring of 1944. His subsequent service is unknown.
After the war, Cerling returned to Illinois. He married Betty McKenrick in 1952, and raised two children with his position as chief of the concrete division of Cerling Construction, Chicago. Eventually, he moved to Camanche, Iowa, where he and his brother built and ran the Camanche Marina. Betty died in 1979, and Keith Cerling moved to Sunnyvale, California where he operated a mail courier business.
Cerling retired back to Camanche in 2001. He died there in 2006.