PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii – Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. David H. Berger, and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Sgt. Maj. Troy E. Black, visited the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2) during a scheduled port visit in Pearl Harbor, HI, Feb. 19.
While aboard Essex, Gen. Berger met with 11th MEU commanding officer, Col. James W. Lively and spoke at an all-hands call on the flight deck to speak to the Marines.
“It’s a great feeling to know that when I’m sitting in a meeting with the Joint Chiefs and we’re considering options on how to respond to a bad situation, I can tell them that the 11th MEU is not just available, but that you are ready,” Gen. Berger said in front of the formation of over 1,000 Marines. “When other units might not be there for three days, I can say that the 11th MEU can be there in 24 hours.”
The Essex Amphibious Ready Group and 11th MEU deployed in August 2021 and conducted operations in the U.S. Central Command and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command areas of responsibility. Throughout the deployment, the ARG/MEU spent the majority of its time operating in two or more separate areas simultaneously, leveraging the flexibility that comes with three amphibious ships to provide a forward presence in one location, while conducting bilateral training with key partners and allies in another.
“It’s a great opportunity for the Marines to have the chance hear their Commandant recognize their actions during deployment and emphasize our purpose as an ARG/MEU team,” said Col. Lively after the event. “Embarking Marines on amphibious vessels and maximizing the flexibility and lethality that both organizations bring to the fight is the epitome of Navy-Marine Corps integration to support maritime deterrence, campaigning, and crisis response.”
The 11th MEU consists of the Command Element; the Aviation Combat Element comprised of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 165 (Reinforced) and Marine Attack Squadron (VMA) 214; the Ground Combat Element comprised of Battalion Landing Team 1/1; and the Logistics Combat Element comprised of Combat Logistics Battalion 11.
The 11th MEU is currently embarked on the Essex ARG, comprised of amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2), amphibious transport dock USS Portland (LPD 27), and amphibious dock landing ship USS Pearl Harbor (LSD 52).
“The 11th MEU is the most ready unit in the Marine Corps today. You’re deployed, you’re ready, and you’re capable of answering America’s call, if needed. Thank you and semper fidelis, Marines,” Sgt. Maj. Black said in his closing comments.
The 11th MEU and Essex ARG remain forward deployed as a flexible, integrated Navy and Marine Corps team capable of conducting amphibious operations, crisis response, and limited contingency operations to maintain a forward presence while upholding U.S. commitment to partners and allies in support of the theater requirements of geographic combatant commanders.
Marine Corps Maj. Robert Hugo Dunlap was one of about 70,000 Marines who landed on the shores of Iwo Jima in late February 1945. At the time, neither he nor his compatriots knew how fierce the fight to overtake the strategic island would be, but he knew he had a job to do. Like many others in the battle, Dunlap did his job with uncommon valor, and that earned him the Medal of Honor.
Dunlap was born on Oct. 19, 1920, to William and Leona Dunlap. He had a younger brother named Harold, and they grew up in Abingdon, Illinois.
Dunlap was an active teen who played football and basketball and did track during high school. After graduation in 1938, he went to Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, where he majored in economics and business administration. Dunlap continued to do track and play football while there. In fact, according to Jeff Ranklin, a historian at Monmouth College, he had been offered a contract by the Philadelphia Eagles, but World War II got in the way.
On March 5, 1942, Dunlap joined the Marine Corps Reserve, but he wasn’t called to active duty until he graduated from Monmouth in May 1942. After attending candidate’s class, he received his commission on July 18, 1942, then went to parachute training school in San Diego. He was assigned to the 3rd Parachute Battalion in December 1942.
The unit was eventually sent to the Pacific. By December 1943, Dunlap was the leader of a platoon that was pinned down by heavy Japanese fire on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. Despite Dunlap’s shy and quiet nature, his commanding officers said he exposed himself to the heavy fire and rallied his men to regain lost ground. For his leadership and courage, he was awarded a letter of commendation from famed Navy Adm. William Halsey.
Dunlap returned to the U.S. in March 1944 to join the newly formed 5th Marine Division, only to be deployed to the Pacific again that summer. On Oct. 2, 1944, Dunlap was promoted to captain and took charge of Company C, 1st Battalion, 26th Marines.
By February 1945, U.S. forces had slowly maneuvered their way closer to a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland. Before they could do that, though, they needed to capture the tiny island of Iwo Jima, which could put U.S. bombers in striking distance of Japan. Marines and some naval forces began landing on the island on Feb. 19, 1945. Dunlap’s unit was in one of the first waves.
On Feb. 20, Dunlap led his troops from low ground toward the island’s steep cliffs. The Japanese, who were entrenched in underground tunnels and caves, pounded them with artillery, mortars, rifles and machine guns.
Company C steadily inched forward until the onslaught was too great to continue, but Dunlap refused to have his progress halted. He pushed ahead of his men, crawling about 200 yards until he made it to the base of a cliff about 50 yards from the Japanese lines. From there he was able to locate the enemy’s gun positions. He then crawled back to his unit and passed that vital information on to supporting artillery and naval gunfire units.
Dunlap spent the next two days and nights working without sleep to direct supporting fire upon the enemy, often putting himself in harm’s way to do so. According to his Medal of Honor citation, he “skillfully directed a smashing bombardment against the almost impregnable Japanese positions despite numerous obstacles and heavy Marine casualties.”
Dunlap’s leadership inspired his men during a critical phase of the battle. His efforts slowed the Japanese defense enough for Marines to eventually move forward and take Mount Suribachi, where the iconic photo of Marines raising the U.S. flag was taken on Feb. 23, 1945.
On Feb. 26, as fighting continued, Dunlap was wounded in the left hip. He was evacuated to Guam and then the U.S., where he spent several months in and out of hospitals. For much of that recovery, Dunlap was in a full body cast.
Meanwhile, after five intense weeks of fighting, U.S. troops finally declared Iwo Jima secured on March 26. But the win came at a huge price. The Marines suffered more than 25,000 casualties, including nearly 7,000 dead. Of the nearly 300 men Dunlap led onto Iwo Jima, fewer than half survived the first four days of fighting, Rankin said.
On Dec. 18, 1945, Dunlap and five other service members attended a White House ceremony to receive the Medal of Honor from President Harry S. Truman. In total, Dunlap and 26 other men earned the medal for their actions at Iwo Jima — more than any other battle in U.S. history.
Just a few days before receiving his medal, Dunlap married his college sweetheart, Mary Louise Frantz. They went on to have two children.
Dunlap’s daughter, Donna Butler, told the Galesburg Register-Mail newspaper in 2014 that after the war, her dad spent about 18 years as a farmer back in Abingdon before becoming a schoolteacher. He continued his work as an educator until he retired in 1982.
Dunlap died on March 24, 2000, in Monmouth, Illinois, at age 79. He was buried in the town’s Warren County Memorial Park.
Dunlap was a member of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution along with his cousin, Navy Vice Adm. James Bond Stockdale. Stockdale, who grew up in Abingdon alongside Dunlap, also earned a Medal of Honor for his actions in 1969 during the Vietnam War. In 2014, a veterans memorial in Abingdon was dedicated to the two men.
This article is part of a weekly series called “Medal of Honor Monday,” in which we highlight one of the more than 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients who have earned the U.S. military’s highest medal for valor.
The Navy must review thousands of general and other-than-honorable discharges awarded to sailors and Marines over the past decade for behavioral problems that may have stemmed from a military-related mental health condition or sexual assault.
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Haight approved a settlement Monday in a class-action suit known as Manker v. Del Toro, which alleged that the Navy and Marine Corps wrongly discharged members for behavior that may have been related to trauma or an injury they endured while serving.
Under the settlement, the Navy will be required to review and reconsider all discharge upgrade requests made from March 2, 2012, to Feb. 15, 2022, that were partially or fully denied.
Read Next: VA to Overhaul Disability Evaluations for Mental Health, Other Conditions
The review of these cases will be automatic; service members will not need to request one.
But the settlement also gives those who were discharged and denied an upgrade from Oct. 7, 2001, through March 1, 2012, the opportunity to reapply for a change in their status with the Naval Discharge Review Board.
The suit stemmed from the case of former Marine Cpl. Tyson Manker, who was dismissed from the service with an other-than-honorable discharge after he was caught using marijuana. Manker told The New York Times that he turned to the drug after being exposed to a series of traumatic experiences in Iraq in 2003.
Manker applied for an upgrade in 2016 but was denied, as have roughly 85% of requests filed to the Naval Discharge Review Board by sailors and Marines.
A general discharge under honorable conditions precludes a veteran from accessing their GI Bill benefits. An other-than-honorable discharge, also known as a “bad paper discharge,” prevents veterans from receiving medical care, disability compensation and education benefits through the GI Bill at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
These discharges also can affect a veteran’s long-term earning power, since many employers will not hire anyone with less than a good conduct discharge.
Monday’s ruling, in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut, follows Haight’s ruling in April 2021 that required the Army to review its other-than-honorable discharges dating back to April 17, 2011.
The Army already had initiated the review of an estimated 3,500 discharges, but the settlement in that case, Kennedy v. McCarthy, also required the service to notify soldiers given bad paper discharges from Oct. 7, 2001, to April 16, 2011, that they could apply for an upgrade or appeal a previous decision.
More than 51,400 discharges under other-than-honorable conditions were issued for active-duty personnel from fiscal 2010 through 2020, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center.
Under the Manker settlement, the Navy will allow veterans to appear before the Naval Discharge Review Board by video teleconference — a change from the requirement that they travel to Washington, D.C., for their hearings. The service also will be required to increase training for board members.
Navy and Marine Corps veterans, including members of the reserve component, who were discharged under general or other-than-honorable conditions and who also have a diagnosis of — or symptoms of — post traumatic stress disorder, a traumatic brain injury, mental health conditions or were victims of military sexual trauma may be eligible for the review.
Status upgrades will be decided on a case-by-case basis and are not guaranteed, noted Manker’s legal team, which included the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School and Jenner & Block LLP in a press release.
In granting approval of the settlement, Haight called it “an impressive example of the manner in which a class action can be made the vehicle for doing substantial justice.”
Brandon Baum, with the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, could not provide an exact number of veterans who may be affected by the ruling but said in an email that it could be in the “tens of thousands.”
Garry Monk, executive director of the clinic, said the settlement “helps bring accountability and justice for thousands of veterans suffering every day from the invisible wounds of war.”
“It is a recognition of their service, their value, and their dignity, and we look forward to the impact it will have on the lives of so many service members,” Monk said in a press release.
More information is available at the Manker Settlement website.
— Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.
Related: Bill Would Give Vets With ‘Bad Paper’ Discharges Better Appeal Options
ARLINGTON, Virginia — In 2021 Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211 joined the British aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth on a historic deployment years in the making ― one that showcased the F-35B.
During the ship’s nearly eight months at sea, Marines and British pilots with the Joint Squadron 617 flew sorties over Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, and trained with more than 40 nations in around the Mediterranean Sea, Middle East and Pacific.
But while training in the Mediterranean Sea with the vertical lift F-35B, the well-publicized deployment drew some unwanted Russian visitors, a British defense official told reporters.
“We were not surprised,” the British official said.
“Our friends wanted to come and exercise with us, we shouldn’t be surprised that others want to come and have a look as well,” the official said.
RELATED
Fighter jets from NATO nations running to intercept Russian aircraft encroaching on allied airspace or operations is nothing new.
In 2021 NATO announced that it conducted 290 such missions over Europe.
But for Marine Brig. Gen. Simon Doran, the U.S. senior national representative to Carrier Strike Group 21, the number of intercept operations was on a scale he had not seen in his six prior deployments on aircraft carriers.
Doran said the pilots on the Queen Elizabeth had to run more intercept and escort missions against Russian jets operating near the carrier strike group than he had seen in his entire career.
“It was really interesting to see if we could demonstrate the unmatched capability of the F-35 against some of the Russian aircraft,” Doran told reporters Tuesday at the Pentagon. “And we’re quite fortunate in that we got the interception escort, I think more Russian aircraft and many other deployments.”
The Russian observers gave the entire carrier strike group the opportunity to operate around a force that was using submarines, surface ships and aircraft — adding a dimension of realism to the exercise, the British defense official added.
The deployment was meant as a proof of concept, showing that Marines with F-35Bs were able to operate off of any U.S. or allied ship that had enough space on its deck to hold them.
“The U.S. forces started this journey with planning teams over a decade ago,” Doran said.
British Rear Adm. Steve Moorehouse, the former commander of Carrier Strike Group 21, which the Marines deployed with, said, “As a commander I was blind to the tailfin of that aircraft it really didn’t matter if it was a Marine Corps or U.K. jet, it was just an F-35 as far as I was concerned.”
The increased flexibility and unpredictably will be an asset in future near-peer fights.
But with the greater opportunities came greater risk of a small tactical misunderstanding leading to an international incident.
“For us it was all about a willingness not to respond, but we would not be bullied or pushed out of there,” the British defense official said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When relatives of American oil executives jailed in Venezuela met virtually with a senior Justice Department official this month, it didn’t take long for their frustrations to surface.
They pressed the official on the prospects of a prisoner exchange that could get their loved ones home but were told that was ultimately a White House decision and not something the U.S. government was generally inclined to do anyway. And they vented about the extradition to the U.S. of an associate of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, an action that inflamed tensions with Caracas and resulted in the American captives being returned to jail from house arrest that day.
The meeting, not previously reported and described by a person who participated in it, ended without firm commitments. But it underscored the simmering frustrations directed by some hostage and detainee families toward the Justice Department, an agency they see as unwilling to think creatively about ways to bring their relatives home from abroad and stubbornly resistant to the possibility of exchanging prisoners.
“The question remains of how to get the Department of Justice to fully engage in the process of recovering hostages and wrongful detainees,” said Everett Rutherford, whose nephew, Matthew Heath, is being held in Venezuela on what the Tennessee man’s family says are bogus weapons charges. “And there hasn’t yet been an answer given to that yet — except for the fact that we’ve been told that the president himself can direct them to do so.”
There are roughly 60 Americans known to be held hostage or wrongfully detained, a definition that covers Americans believed innocent or jailed for the purpose of exacting concessions from the U.S.
Families of at least some see fresh opportunities to cut deals.
The Taliban, whose Haqqani network is believed to be holding hostage Navy veteran Mark Frerichs of Illinois, has told the U.S. it seeks the release of imprisoned drug lord Bashir Noorzai. Russia has locked up Marine veteran Trevor Reed, sentenced to nine years on charges he assaulted police officers in Moscow, and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan, imprisoned on espionage charges. Officials there have floated at various times the names of citizens it would like home, including international arms dealer Viktor Bout and drug smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko, both imprisoned in the U.S.
This undated image provided by the Reed family, shows the IK-12 Prison Camp where Marine veteran Trevor Reed is being held. (Reed Family via AP)
The U.S. considers Whelan and Reed to be wrongfully detained.
The Justice Department isn’t typically thought of as a lead agency in hostage matters. The State Department, after all, has diplomatic tools at its disposal and is home to the government’s chief hostage negotiator, while the Pentagon has authority to launch military raids to free hostages from captivity. The three agencies’ interests aren’t always necessarily in sync on hostage issues, which can be overshadowed by broader national security or diplomatic concerns — or, in the case of the Justice Department, what the government thinks is best for holding criminals accountable.
The Justice Department said in a statement that it “recognizes that families are put in an extraordinarily difficult circumstance, with unimaginable pain” when Americans are wrongfully detained and that it works with other federal agencies to bring them home in a manner consistent with the government’s “no-concessions” policy in hostage matters.
From the U.S. government’s perspective, a prisoner swap risks creating a false equivalency between a wrongfully detained American and a justly convicted felon, and could also encourage additional captures by foreign countries.
Mickey Bergman, who as vice president of the Richardson Center for Global Engagement has worked on hostage cases, said he’s heard that argument but thinks “the framing is wrong.”
“Because it’s not about the guilty people that get released, it’s about the innocent Americans that come back home,” Bergman said. “And so I reverse the question and say: Is leaving … innocent Americans to rot in prisons around the world worth the insistence of us having criminals, foreign criminals, serve their full time in the American system?”
The issue is newly relevant as several countries or groups holding Americans, including Russia and the Taliban, have floated the names of prisoners in the U.S. they want released.
This 2018 image provided by the Reed family shows Trevor Reed at Red Square in Moscow, Russia. (Reed Family via AP)
The families’ frustration is less with current political leadership of the Justice Department than with the nature of the institution itself, an agency that across administrations has prioritized its independence and its prerogative to make prosecutorial decisions and sentencing recommendations free from political considerations. The instinct is crucial for democracy, but it can also result in actions that hostage families see as dismissive of their interests.
The October extradition to Miami of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, presented by U.S. officials as a close Maduro associate, agitated relatives of six Citgo executives who’ve been jailed for years in Venezuela over a never-executed plan to refinance billions in the oil company’s bonds. It was a tension point in this month’s Justice Department call and in a December meeting between hostage families and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, though the situation may be complicated by the revelation this week that Saab was signed up by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as a source in 2018.
The reticence to swaps predates the Biden administration, and some of the deals the families seek didn’t gain traction under former President Donald Trump, either. Even so, there is a precedent for arrangements that serve a diplomatic purpose.
The Trump administration, seen as more willing to flout convention in hostage affairs, brought home Navy veteran Michael White in 2020 in an agreement that spared an American-Iranian doctor prosecuted by the Justice Department any more time behind bars and that permitted him to return to Iran. Even before then, the Obama administration pardoned or dropped charges against seven Iranians in a prisoner exchange tied to the nuclear deal with Tehran. Three jailed Cubans were sent home in 2014 as Havana released American Alan Gross after five years’ imprisonment.
This 2015 image provided by the Reed family shows Trevor Reed, second from right, with his family from left, mother Paula Reed, sister Taylor Reed and father Joey Reed. (Reed Family via AP)
Nine Americans, including Heath and the so-called Citgo 6, are detained in Venezuela at a time when the U.S. is holding two nephews of Venezuela’s first lady on drug charges.
Some hostage and detainee families say they’re heartened by the access they’ve had to senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Sullivan. But the resistance to a trade has remained constant.
Charlene Cakora, Frerichs’ sister, met with White House and Justice Department officials last August and says she was told that Noorzai, a convicted Afghan drug lord, was a “bad guy.” She said in an interview that if the government won’t “trade for my brother, then I want to know what other ideas are out there.”
Paula Reed and Joey Reed, Trevor’s parents, say U.S. officials have told them that they’d seek the same outcome if they were their shoes. But though the Granbury, Texas, couple has urged Justice Department officials during meetings to seek a deal now, the officials have said only that they’re “considering everything,” said Paula Reed.
“They didn’t say: ‘Oh, we agree with you, that’s a great deal. That’s a good point.’ They didn’t say anything like that. They just said: ‘We hear you. Thank you very much,”’ she said. “They didn’t give us indication one way or the other.”
Elizabeth Whelan, Paul’s sister, said she’s been grateful for the U.S. government’s attention. She said she’s not entirely sure what Russia wants for her brother and said demands by it and other countries seem “stupid” and “over the top.”
“But,” she added, “I feel my brother is worth whatever Russia is asking for.”
Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — A Marine Corps reservist who was charged in last year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol also schemed with a nurse to steal, forge and sell hundreds of fake coronavirus vaccination cards and destroy vaccine doses to fake inoculations, federal authorities said Thursday.
Cpl. Jia Liu, 26, and nurse Steven Rodriguez, 27, were awaiting a court appearance Thursday on charges of conspiring to commit forgery and to defraud the federal government.
RELATED
“By deliberately distributing fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards to the unvaccinated, the defendants put military and other communities at risk of contracting a virus that has already claimed nearly 1 million lives in this country,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
Liu’s lawyer, Benjamin Yaster, declined to comment. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Rodriguez had an attorney who could speak to the allegations. The charges in the vaccination card case carry the potential for up to 10 years in prison for Liu, of Queens, and Rodriguez, of suburban Long Beach.
According to an indictment, Rodriguez, who worked at a clinic on Long Island, pilfered blank COVID-19 vaccination cards.
The two men allegedly offered customers the choice of buying cards blank or fraudulently filled out, with a premium-priced option: a fake vaccination record in the New York state and city databases that are used to issue vaccine passes.
A buyer who sprung for the add-on would go to the clinic, where Rodriguez would dispose of a dose of vaccine, forge a card and make a phony entry into the databases, the indictment said.
Covering their tracks by referring to “gift cards,” “Cardi Bs,” “Christmas cards” and “Pokemon cards,” Liu and Rodriguez conducted the scam through encrypted messaging apps and social media and instructed buyers to mask online payments as “consultancy” or “Korean BBQ,” the indictment said.
“I need to make an appointment for you with my buddy who will destroy a vial, scan your ID and give you a Band-Aid,” Liu told one contact in a message last May, the indictment said.
The scheme ultimately involved over 300 ill-gotten vaccination cards and over 70 fake database entries, according to prosecutors.
It said some of the fake cards went to Liu’s fellow Marine reservists, following a Pentagon order in August that all members of the military be vaccinated.
The Marine Corps “is aware of the situation, and we are fully cooperating with federal authorities,” Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Thomas said in a statement.
He said the Marines had already taken steps toward administratively separating Liu before Thursday’s arrest. Administrative separation is a military term that’s akin to firing in the civilian world.
Liu was charged this past fall with climbing through a broken window into the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that delayed Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Security cameras recorded Liu entering the building, according to a criminal complaint.
In that case, he has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges including entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct.
The Marine Corps is moving fast, but not fast enough to modernize for a potential future war against China, the new deputy commandant for combat development and integration said Wednesday.
The Corps has taken the lead in the Department of Defense in its preparation for a war in the Pacific, with its Force Design 2030 plan released shortly after Gen. David Berger took over as commandant of the Marine Corps in summer 2019.
“If anybody thinks we are moving fast enough, you’re crazy,” Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl said Wednesday at the Marine Corps’ western seaboard West Conference.
“I would say we need to double down our efforts and figure out a way to move quicker,” Heckl said.
RELATED
The commandant’s plan sees the Marine Corps getting smaller, lighter and more mobile in order to conduct a distributed fight in the Pacific, with the focus shifting toward how the Marine Corps can support a naval campaign in the region.
Small teams of Marines potentially armed with ship sinking missiles will take up small outposts throughout the Pacific.
The small size will ideally keep them hidden from enemy forces. If the Marines are detected, the increased maneuverability will ideally allow them to leave a position before it is targeted by the potential enemy.
The Marine Corps already has created units that are experimenting with the new formations Marine leaders believe are needed to fight in this way.
“My commandant has stepped off at speed,” Heckl said Wednesday. “We are moving very, very quickly and I assure you there will be no let up on the accelerator.”
In August 2021 the Marine Corps launched a Naval strike missile at U.S. Navy hull, and plans on spending the next two years allowing the 11th Marine Regiment to experiment with the missile and the best way to incorporate it into the fleet.
Heckl said he wants industry to give the Corps more products to the fleet in order to start testing them.
“What I’m looking for is getting certain different capabilities in the hands of the operators and letting them begin to experiment,” Heckl said.
Heckl added that continuing resolutions risk slowing down the progress the Marine Corps is making.
The government has been operating on a series of continuing resolutions, which freeze government speeding at the fiscal year 2021 levels since the new fiscal year started in October.
The current continuing resolution would fund the government through March 11.
“We need stable, predictable funding,” Heckl said.
The general went on to voice his concerns that military development tends to lead to over engineering at the cost of developmental speed.
“If we continue to overengineer, over cost everything and over schedule everything the Chinese are just going to get farther and farther and farther ahead,” Heckl said.
Marines do some pretty spectacular and/or ridiculous things while deployed. Anyone who follows Terminal Lance on Instagram can tell you that much. What Marine Warrant Officer Faustin Wirkus did was pretty spectacular, but really it was just a day in the life of a U.S. Marine. Except this time, the Marine in question ended up being proclaimed king of the island in a voodoo ceremony — and he ended up with a wife, whether he wanted to or not.
At this point, half of everyone is wondering what happened and the other half is wondering if voodoo is why you so rarely see the warrant officers in your unit. Well, It was why then-Sergeant Wirkus had to stop showing up for duty. It wasn’t that Wirkus was opposed to hard work — he was a United States Marine after all, and he grew up breaking coal from slate in the Pennsylvania Coal Country.
But, Wirkus, he had an island to rule.
Wirkus arrived in Haiti in 1915 with his fellow Marines. He spent much of his first year around the capital of Port-Au-Prince. Germany had been intervening in a number of Caribbean insurrections. The Haitians suddenly overthrew the American-backed dictator on the island, and Caco Rebels installed an anti-American president.
“The first deputy queen under Ti Memenne dressed in clothes Wirkus brought from the States. Screengrab from Wirkus memoir, courtesy of onesourceauctions.com. Composite made by Coffee or Die Magazine.
The Marines were sent in to occupy and stabilize the island while enforcing the American “Monroe Doctrine” — an intolerance toward European meddling in the Western Hemisphere. They were also protecting U.S. economic interests. Wirkus was one of many Marines sent to Haiti aboard the USS Tennessee. It was aboard that ship he first saw the island of La Gonâve.
He asked a Marine NCO about the island. The reply was cryptic and short.
“If you’re lucky, you’ll never get any closer to that place than you are now. No white man has set foot on it since the days of the buccaneers. There’s a post on it now, but the men stationed there don’t usually come back — and if they do, they’re fit for nothing but the bug house… Place is full of voodoos and God knows what else.”
Luckily, he was kept in the capital during his first deployment in Haiti. He soon fell from a truck and broke his arm. After his recovery in the U.S., he was sent to Cuba, and eventually back to Haiti. It was four years later and the young Marine was now a Sergeant, but was a commissioned officer in the local Garde d’Haiti, keeping the Caco Rebels at bay in the outer edges of the island nation.
US Marine Faustin Wirkus published his memoir in 1931 titled The White King of La Gonave: The True Story of the Sergeant of Marines Who Was Crowned King on a Voodoo Island. Screengrab of the book via onesourceauctions.com.
He was good at it, and so, of course, he would eventually be sent to the one place everyone told him he would be lucky to never see. No, it was not Twentynine Palms, it was the mysterious island the NCO warned him about: La Gonâve.
Wirkus was extremely interested in the island. It captivated him but none of the other Marines could tell him anything about the island’s interior; none of them had ever dared to venture inland. His first assignment on the island was to assess prisoners of the Garde who were charged with “offenses against the Republic of Haiti” and “trivial voodoo offenses.”
Among them was a woman named Ti Memenne, who warned the Marine that she would see him again. Still, Wirkus sent her on to Port-Au-Prince with a recommendation for lenient treatment.
Faustin II’s good luck was good luck for the locals. The 19-year U.S. occupation of Haiti did not go as smoothly or nonviolently for the rest of the country. But that good luck ran afoul of the President of Haiti, who was able to visit the island for the first time in 1928. Incidentally, he was able to visit without being murdered by the island’s inhabitants, thanks to the command decisions of Faustin Wirkus. The President was not thrilled with the King and requested he be transferred to the mainland United States.
He went willingly in 1929 and left the Corps shortly after. He returned to active duty in the days before World War II and was made a Warrant Officer who served in the Navy’s pre-flight school in North Carolina. He died just months before the end of World War II and was interred in Arlington National Cemetery.
This article was originally published by We Are The Mighty. Read more by We Are The Mighty here.
Read Next: The Medal of Honor Recipient Who Refused to Die: He Enlisted at 14, Dove on 2 Grenades at 17
Pfc. Ana DominguezValazquez, a Marine from Recruiting Sub-Station Fullerton, Recruiting Station Orange County, shipped to recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island on Mar. 15, 2021. She entered recruit training prepared and resilient at the beginning of June 2021, but after obtaining a serious injury, had to quickly adapt her plan.
One month into recruit training, DominguezValazquez started having pain in her hips. The Navy doctors informed her she had broken her hip during training.
“I honestly don’t even remember how or when I broke it,” says DominguezValazquez. “All I could think about was the fact that I knew I couldn’t continue with my platoon in training.”
Shortly after finding out the news, DominguezValazquez transferred to the female rehabilitation platoon (FRP) on the depot. FRP is for recruits who become injured during training and need time to rehabilitate until they are ready to continue.
“There were times in FRP that I was really down about being hurt, but there was this one recruit who I really looked up to that kept me going,” claims DominguezValazquez. “She was originally in my sister platoon when I started out in November Company, and she was extremely resilient. I looked up to her because she never gave up, regardless of her injury or how long she took to get better.”
DominguezValazquez went in and out of training as she tried to push through her injury to become a Marine. She went into three different companies before being placed in her final platoon.
“It felt like forever being out of training,” says DominguezValazquez. “On the bright side, I was able to build a whole new family in FRP. Even now, I’m still a little sad knowing some of the females I was with are still there.”
It took seven months in total for DominguezValazquez to completely heal before returning to training with Kilo Company. Finally, she returned where she was initially pulled from training, grass week. Grass week is where recruits start learning the fundamentals of rifle marksmanship.
“It truly feels absolutely amazing to have finally graduated and earned the title, United States Marine,” says DominguezValazquez. “When I was in FRP, I’d see people come back from the crucible, and it would make me so sad. Coming back from the crucible, I was so happy I can’t even put it into words. I was yelling cadence so loudly, thinking to myself that I finally made it.”
After eleven months spent on Parris Island and enduring challenges she never thought she would face, DominguezValazquez graduated from recruit training on Feb. 11, 2022. Even though DominguezValazquez had some doubts during her time, she knew quitting was never an option.
“I think if someone ever goes through something similar to me, they should remind themselves that if you start something, you should finish it,” says DominguezValazquez. “We have so much time in our lives, and this is such a small moment compared to that. It felt so quick going from the yellow footprints to a Marine.”
DominguezValazquez embodied the definition of resilience by facing and overcoming adversity. After graduating, DominguezValazquez will attend Marine Combat Training. There, she will find out what her occupation for the Marine Corps will be.
Date Taken:
02.17.2022
Date Posted:
02.19.2022 12:16
Story ID:
414886
Location:
ORANGE COUNTY, CA, US
Web Views:
5
Downloads:
0
PUBLIC DOMAIN
This work, Quitting Was Never An Option: Female Marine Graduates After 11 Months At Parris Island, by Sgt Sarah Ralph, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
