Book by C.W. Post Alumnus Chronicles Vietnam Graffiti

“Ricky & Pat, Manorville, L.I.” The words were scrawled on the underside of a canvas bunk by the man lying in the bunk below. Young fighting men slept in the bunks, one 18 inches above the other, aboard the U.S. Navy troopship General Nelson M. Walker as they sailed to war in Vietnam.

Some three decades later, Marine Corps veteran Rick Johnson, author of the graffito, found himself in the studios of C.W. Post’s campus radio station, wearing headphones and speaking into a microphone. He was being interviewed by 1963 alumnus Art Beltrone for the Vietnam Graffiti Project, Mr. Beltrone’s nearly 10-year effort to preserve the graffiti on the canvas bunks of troopships that transported soldiers to southeast Asia in the 1960s.

“He had graduated from high school, was dating a gal named Pat (they never married), and left the inscription,” Mr. Beltrone recalled from his interview with Mr. Johnson. “After Vietnam, Rick Johnson developed his interest in art and has become a recognized artist of nautical scenes on Long Island’s east end.”

In 1997, Mr. Beltrone and his wife Lee, began removing canvas troopship bunks bearing graffiti from the Maritime Administration’s “ghost fleet” in Virginia and then distributed them to museums throughout the country, including the Smithsonian and Library of Congress. They wrote a book describing the effort, “Vietnam Graffiti: Messages from a Forgotten Troopship,” and helped a Texas Tech University team from Lubbock, Texas retrieve graffiti-filled canvases from another ship in California.

Today, the Beltrones and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities are developing a project to create an interactive, multi-media Web site featuring the veterans’ oral histories about going to war on a troopship and the story of the 1960s. Any member of the Long Island University community who traveled to war on a troopship can participate in the Vietnam Graffiti Project by contacting Mr. Beltrone by e-mail at vietnamgraffiti@yahoo.com.

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

In a lighthearted recollection, Mr. Wunch described swabbing the deck of his troop compartment and then, with the aid of a long rope attached to the shaft, lowering his mop into the ocean through a porthole so it could be cleaned. “We lost more mops that way,” he said with a laugh.

But the veterans recalled the dark moments of their service as well. “At times, the interviews became very emotional,” Mr. Beltrone said. “These were the men who returned to their Long Island homes. Others were not so fortunate."

Mr. Beltrone left his mark at C.W. Post. He was one of the founders of WCWP and remembers when it was at 550 on the AM dial and broadcast over campus power lines. He played baseball on a scholarship, and is the author of the inscription on the ceremonial mace used in Commencement exercises: “Presented to C.W. Post College by the Class of 1963 with best wishes to those who will follow in the future, the tradition of the Pioneer.”

Returning to campus for the Vietnam veteran interviews "was like being back home after a somewhat long absence,” Mr. Beltrone said.

Posted: August 23, 2006