https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/ ... marine-dnr
Sgt. Faustin Wirkus’ ascent from a poor “breaker boy” — separating coal from slate — to king, is the stuff of Marine Corps legend.
“I had to go to work in the collieries,” Wirkus later wrote. “There was no escaping the sequence of that rule … but there was a different idea in my mind. … In the little time I had been in school, it had become foggily known to me that somewhere out beyond the dust, the rattling collieries, and the grimy shacks of Dupont [Pennsylvania], was a world full of thrill and the glory of being alive.”
In 1915 he was among the first outfits of “Leathernecks” sent to Haiti to restore order, according to his New York Times obituary. It was during his first tour that Wirkus fell in love with the island, returning for duty on and off for several years before, in 1920, he established a fortuitous friendship while serving at the tiny outpost of Anse à Gallet.
That day, according to a 1931 Time article, Wirkus witnessed a tax collector arrest a Haitian woman for “voodoo offenses.” The woman, the magazine wrote, claimed that she was Queen Ti Memenne of La Gonave. Although initially transferred to Port-au-Prince to stand trial, the queen was eventually freed due to Wirkus’ pleas for leniency.According to local superstition, “a previous ruler of the island had borne that name [King Faustin I] and, according to legend had vanished in 1848 with the promise that his descendant of the same name would return to take his throne,” according to a New York Times report.
By candlelight on the evening of July 18, 1926, Queen Ti Memenne crowned the gunnery sergeant Faustin II, the “White King of La Gonave.” Carried from the houmfort, or voodoo temple, a blood sacrifice was made via a rooster — The New York Times story claimed it was a goat — as the crowd shouted “The King! Long live King Faustin!” to the more than slightly confused Marine.
LOL , the first I've heard of this story.
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Sgt. Faustin Wirkus’ ascent from a poor “breaker boy” — separating coal from slate — to king, is the stuff of Marine Corps legend.
“I had to go to work in the collieries,” Wirkus later wrote. “There was no escaping the sequence of that rule … but there was a different idea in my mind. … In the little time I had been in school, it had become foggily known to me that somewhere out beyond the dust, the rattling collieries, and the grimy shacks of Dupont [Pennsylvania], was a world full of thrill and the glory of being alive.”
In 1915 he was among the first outfits of “Leathernecks” sent to Haiti to restore order, according to his New York Times obituary. It was during his first tour that Wirkus fell in love with the island, returning for duty on and off for several years before, in 1920, he established a fortuitous friendship while serving at the tiny outpost of Anse à Gallet.
That day, according to a 1931 Time article, Wirkus witnessed a tax collector arrest a Haitian woman for “voodoo offenses.” The woman, the magazine wrote, claimed that she was Queen Ti Memenne of La Gonave. Although initially transferred to Port-au-Prince to stand trial, the queen was eventually freed due to Wirkus’ pleas for leniency.According to local superstition, “a previous ruler of the island had borne that name [King Faustin I] and, according to legend had vanished in 1848 with the promise that his descendant of the same name would return to take his throne,” according to a New York Times report.
By candlelight on the evening of July 18, 1926, Queen Ti Memenne crowned the gunnery sergeant Faustin II, the “White King of La Gonave.” Carried from the houmfort, or voodoo temple, a blood sacrifice was made via a rooster — The New York Times story claimed it was a goat — as the crowd shouted “The King! Long live King Faustin!” to the more than slightly confused Marine.
LOL , the first I've heard of this story.
statistics: Posted by Rebcop — 3:04 AM - 1 day ago — Replies 2 — Views 54
