Training in the land of pirates
I want to look at a couple of items from my maternal grandfather's military service record today before switching over to the other side of the family for the next couple of weeks. As I mentioned before, grandfather William was a member of the U.S. Marines. He enlisted in the service in 1900 at the age of 21 and was sent to Washington, D.C. Two years later, he was sent to Annapolis, Maryland, and a year later was posted to Culebra, V.I., as it's listed on his record. I mistakenly assumed, when I first read this information, that he had been sent to the U.S. Virgin Islands, but it turns out that Culebra was part of the Spanish Virgin Islands, consisting primarily of Puerto Rico, Isla Culebra and Isla Vieques. It would be worth your while to read up on the USVI, which the U.S. bought from the Danish, and learn about its history with piracy and slavery, but I won't deal with it in this blog. Some believe Christopher Columbus stopped in on Culebra, or Isla Pasaje (Passage Isl...