L.I. Vietnam Vets to Recount Oral Histories of
Sailing to War June 30 at C.W. Post

Brookville, N.Y. -- Long Island Vietnam veterans, tracked down by a military history buff whose clues were graffiti scrawled on the canvas bunks of a troop transport ship, will describe the experience of sailing to war in interviews at WCWP, the campus radio station at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, at 11 a.m.onFriday, June 30, 2006.

C.W. Post 1963 alumnus Art Beltrone will record the veterans’ oral histories as part of the Vietnam Graffiti Project, his nearly 10-year effort to preserve the canvas bunks – and the graffiti left on them by the young men sailing to war in Southeast Asia – on troopships mothballed on the east and west coasts of the United States.

“The messages on the canvases really captured the climate of the 1960s. There are political messages, there are social messages, there are references to drugs – just about everything that was in the forefront in the 1960s,” said Beltrone, a former Newsday reporter and public relations professional who lives today in Keswick, Va. “Other messages left on the canvases also personalize the story of going to war.”

Since 1997, Beltrone and his wife, Lee, have cataloged canvas troopship bunks bearing graffiti and distributed them to museums around the country, including the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress. They have published a book, “Vietnam Graffiti: Messages from a Forgotten Troopship.” Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas has become a partner in the effort.

Most recently, the Beltrones and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities have applied for a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create an interactive, multi-media Web site featuring the veterans’ oral historiesand story of the 1960s.

Beltrone will have canvas bunks on hand at the WCWP studios at the C.W. Post Campus, 720 Northern Boulevard, Brookville, N.Y. on Friday.

Posted: June 29, 2006